Telangana: 9 MLCs including five from Congress join TRS

Nine members of Legislative Council -- including five from Congress and two from TDP -- in Telangana today crossed over to TRS, boosting the strength of the ruling party in the upper house.

TRS also got a shot in the arm in the Legislative Assembly, with BSP MLAs A Indrakaran Reddy and Koneru Konappa joining it. The legislators joined TRS today in the presence of party supremo and Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao.

TRS's strength in the 119-member Assembly now goes up to 65. The nine MLCs are: K R Amos, Jagadeesh Reddy, Bhanuprasad Rao, Rajalingam and Bhoopal Reddy (all Congress); Venkateswarlu and Salim (both TDP); Pula Ravinder and Janardhan Reddy (both elected from teachers' constituencies).

This takes TRS's strength in the Council to 15 from earlier four (with two party leaders getting appointed as Governor's nominees). Speaking on this occasion, Chief Minister Rao lashed out at his Andhra Pradesh counterpart N Chandrababu Naidu, saying that some of his actions were anti-Telangana.

Rao referred to the Centre's ordinance on Polavaram irrigation project and merger of certain villages with Andhra Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh government's decision to cancel the power purchase agreements among other things, saying that these actions were against the interests of Telangana.