Three Telangana BJP MLAs were suspended by Telangana Assembly Speaker Pocharam Srinivas Reddy on Monday, 7 March, for objecting to the presentation of the state Budget by Finance Minister Harish Rao. Eatala Rajender, Raja Singh, and Raghunandan Rao were suspended by the speaker minutes after the Budget session of the Telangana Assembly commenced. The suspension will be in force until the end of the session.
The BJP MLAs were protesting against the government’s decision to skip the customary Governor’s speech at the beginning of the Budget session.
The motion to suspend the BJP MLAs was moved by Animal Husbandry, Fisheries and Cinematography Minister Talasani Srinivas Yadav. Citing the Assembly rules, he urged the speaker to suspend the three BJP MLAs until the end of this session.
Following the request, Speaker Pocharam Srinivas Reddy announced that the motion had been moved and the question was put forward for vote, following which the MLAs were suspended.
The suspended BJP MLAs sat in protest outside the main gate of the Telangana Assembly, wearing black scarves around their neck.
The three BJP MLAs also got into an argument with the police as they were sloganeering against Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao, and said they were not being allowed to protest.
BJP MLA Raghunandan Rao said, “We were suspended for standing inside the house and now you are trying to throw us out for protesting here.”
The MLAs also demanded that the ACP should be suspended immediately and sloganeered against the police as well.
Addressing the media, BJP MLA Raja Singh said, “CM KCR must be thinking there is no one to question him. The people of Telangana are seeing your dirty tricks. The same KCR who fought for Telangana is leading the state into darkness and is working against the Constitution.”
Telangana Finance Minister Harish Rao presented the state Budget for 2022-2023 with a proposed total expenditure of Rs 2.56 lakh crore. The Budget for the new financial year is around Rs 26,000 crore higher than the Budget presented in the last financial year.
(Published in an arrangement with The News Minute.)
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