BJP national vice-president and former minister DK Aruna on Friday approached the Telangana Assembly to take oath as MLA after the high court passed a directive to disqualify BRS MLA Bandla Krishna Mohan Reddy, who was elected from the Gadwal constituency in 2018, and declared her winner.
However, the Congress intervened in the case saying they would file a disqualification petition against Aruna if she takes oath as she had contested the polls as a Congress candidate before switching to the BJP later. Incidentally, Aruna’s letter to the Assembly secretary bore the letterhead of the BJP.
Reddy’s election was declared void after Aruna filed a petition challenging it before the court alleging that the property details submitted by him in the affidavit were found incorrect. Reddy, who is a nephew of DK Aruna, had contested on a BRS ticket to defeat the sitting MLA.
Aruna had challenged his nephew’s election in the high court and was declared winner by the court in its 24 August judgement at a time when the current Legislative Assembly is due to be dissolved soon with the state elections slated for December.
In her letter to the secretary of the Legislative Assembly, Aruna urged him to administer the oath at the earliest, complying with the High court judgement. Both Speaker Pocharam Srinivas and the secretary were unavailable when Aruna accompanied by MLA Raghunandan Rao and former MLC N Ramachander Rao came to the Assembly to hand over the letter to the joint secretary.
Aruna said the state must act on the court orders as not doing so amounts to disrespecting the judiciary and justice system. She also submitted the high court order to the chief electoral officer Vikas Raj.
However, Congress supporters kept reminding Aruna that she had contested as their candidate in 2018.
What’s of interest in the entire episode is that while Bandla Krishna Mohan Reddy of the BRS had won the election securing more than one lakh votes, DK Aruna had got over 72,000 votes as a Congress candidate while the BJP was poor third with a measly vote tally of 1,936, even less than that of NOTA.
What’s all the more interesting is that four months later, just before the Lok Sabha elections, Aruna joined the BJP and contested from the Mahabubnagar constituency only to lose to the BRS again.