Danam Nagender disqualification brings Congress’s stand on defections into focus

The Telangana High Court’s disqualification of Danam Nagender has renewed focus on the Congress’s 2024 manifesto promise to make defection an automatic ground for disqualification. Nagender had joined Congress from BRS and contested the Secunderabad Lok Sabha election while remaining an MLA.

Hyderabad: The disqualification of Danam Nagendar as an MLA by the Telangana High Court brings into sharp focus the Congress party’s stand on the issue of defections.

Coinciding with the selection of Danam Nagendar as its candidate for the Secunderabad Lok Sabha seat, the Congress party had released its election manifesto with a bold and categorical promise of amending the 10th Schedule of the Constitution. The electoral promise was to automatically disqualify members of the Assembly or Parliament, if they defected from any political party on whose ticket they get elected.

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It was an incongruous situation indeed. While the party guiding forces including Rahul Gandhi harped on their commitment to check defections in their manifesto, named ‘Nyay Patra’, their official candidate in Secunderabad Lok Sabha segemnt was none other than Danam Nagendar, who got elected to the Telangana Legislative Assembly on a BRS ticket, but later defected to the

Congress along with nine other turncoat MLAs. Nagendar’s candidature in Secunderabad parliamentary polls exemplified the double face of the Congress in respect of what it professes to do and what it does.

The Congress, despite having a simple majority in the assembly, had encouraged defections from the BRS in Telangana. The ruling party’s possibly lucrative offers enticed Nagendar and nine others to switch political loyalties, without resigning from their posts in the legislature. However, subsequently, one of the turncoats – Patancheru MLA Gudem Mahipal Reddy later returned to the BRS, citing different reasons.

More brazen was the behaviour of the ruling party leaders in encouraging the defections. Despite inviting severe criticism for encouraging the defections, leaders no less than the AICC in-charge Deepadas Munshi was present when Danam Nagender joined the Congress.

The AICC maintained a conspiratorial silence on the defections, even while Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy welcomed the turncoat MLAs into the party by offering them the Congress stoles. The party had even defended the defections arguing that the MLAs had not joined the party but were only meeting the Chief Minister to seek funds and projects for their respective constituencies. This argument continued even while the Congress MP and Leader of Opposition in Parliament, Rahul Gandhi proudly displayaed a copy of the Constitution in various programmes, reiterating the party’s commitment to protecting constitutional and democratic values.

Interestingly, amid the controversy over defections in Telangana, Rahul Gandhi has not responded to the issue surrounding the turncoat MLAs. The BRS working president KT Rama Rao has repeatedly questioned him over the Congress manifesto’s promise to disqualify MLAs and MPs who switch loyalties. However, Gandhi has not responded to the BRS charges.
Against this backdrop, the Telangana High Court’s judgment disqualifying Danam Nagender has brought the Congress party’s stand on defections under renewed scrutiny. The High Court set aside Speaker G Prasad Kumar’s decision to reject the petitions filed by the BRS on March 11 this year and disqualified Danam Nagender after finding that he had filed his nomination as a

Congress candidate on April 23, 2024, while continuing as a BRS MLA.

Questions are now being raised over the Congress party’s commitment to implementing the promises made in its manifesto. Whether the Chief Minister’s actions are in violation of the party’s manifesto is a matter of perspective. However, the Danam Nagender episode has brought renewed focus on the Congress party’s stand on defections, particularly Rahul Gandhi’s position on the issue.