SNCN ACHARYULU
The coming Rajya Sabha elections in both Telugu states are creating interest. Whether six seats for the Rayya Sabha elections in the Telugu states will be elected unanimously or elections will become inevitable is dependent on the decision of main opposition parties in the both the states. Going through the present strength of ruling and main opposition parties, the Congress will win two seats and BRS will win one seat in Telangana. Regarding Andhra Pradesh all the three seats will be won by the YSR Congress.
To win the Rajya Sabha elections in Telangana, each candidate requires support of 30 MLAs. The Congress has 64 plus one CPI MLA’s support. That means the Congress will have five surplus votes. The BRS has 39 MLAs and it will have 9 surplus votes. If the AIMIM supports the BRS it will have 16 surplus votes. To win the second Rajya Sabha seat, the BRS requires the support of another 14 MLAs. In the same way to win the third seat, the Congress requires the support of 25 MLAs. In the present circumstances there will be no chance for cross voting in both the Congress and the BRS.
However, to make the Rajya Sabha elections complicated and to create fear in the Congress, BRS will contest elections for two Rajya Sabha seats. If the AIMIM decides to support the Congress, the BRS may contest for only one seat and the Congress will contest for two seats and the three candidates will be elected unanimously.
In the wake five BRS MLAs meeting Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy recently, the BRS leadership may not dare to contest for the second seat, political observers feel.
Regarding Andhra Pradesh, according to present effective strength of Andhra Pradesh Assembly, each Rajya Sabha candidate requires the support of 44 MLAs. At present the ruling YSR Congress has 145 MLAs and five other MLAs are from the TDP and the Jana Sena. To win three Rajya Sabha seats, the YSR Congress requires 132 MLAs. The TDP has 18 MLAs and the support of four other MLAs of YSR Congress who were suspended. That means the TDP has 22 MLAs and to win one Rajya Sabha seat it still requires support of 22 MLAs.
In the 175 members strength AP assembly, the Sspeaker recently accepted the resignation of TDP MLA Ganta Srinivasa Rao and with that the total effective strength of Assembly has come down to 174.
Meanwhile, the Speaker sent notices to four defected MLAs of TDP and four defected MLAs of YSR Congress. YSR Congress MLA Alla Ramakrishna Reddy recently sent his resignation to the Speaker.
If the Speaker disqualifies the eight defected MLAs and accepts the resignation of MLA Ramakrishna Reddy the effective strength of AP Assembly will further comedown to 165.
Than the YSR Congress will have 146 and TDP will have 18 MLAs. At the same time, the required support of MLAs for each Rajya Sabha candidate will come down to 41 from 44.