Telangana: BJP MLAs take oath after election of new Speaker

The BJP MLAs had refused to take the oath conducted by Pro-Tem Speaker Akbaruddin Owaisi on December 9, citing violation of rules

Hyderabad: Soon after Prasad Kumar was unanimously elected as Speaker, all the eight Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLAs took oath in the Assembly here on Thursday.The BJP MLAs had refused to take the oath conducted by Pro-Tem Speaker Akbaruddin Owaisi on December 9, citing violation of rules. They argued that despite other Members being senior to Akbaruddin Owaisi, the ruling Congress party had appointed him as the Pro-Tem Speaker. They had even lodged a complaint with Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan in this regard.

Before announcing the election of the new Speaker, the Pro-Tem Speaker called the names and administered the oath for Members, who could not attend the December 9 ceremony. While, many of them, including former Deputy Speaker T Padma Rao Goud took the oath, the BJP MLAs did not turn up.Soon after Prasad Kumar was unanimously elected as Speaker and took charge, the BJP MLAs sporting saffron kurtas and scarfs stepped into the Assembly at 12.15 pm. The Speaker immediately administered them the oath.

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Among the eight BJP MLAs, two of them, including Ramarao Pawar and T Raja Singh took oath in Hindi, while others took oath in Telugu.