Congress review meeting in Telangana must to avoid more damage: Hanumantha Rao

Senior Congress leader V. Hanumantha Rao on Saturday flagged to party president Rahul Gandhi the need of conducting a review meeting in Telangana soon to avoid further political damage.

Rao's statement came after four out of six Congress Members of Legislative Council (MLCs) on Friday defected to the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) that emerged victorious in the recently concluded state Assembly elections.

Rao told ANI, "There is a dire need to conduct a review meeting. I request the party head to make this move at the earliest. K. Chandrashekar Rao is now trying that there should be no Opposition which is why he is luring our MLCs. It has already been 10 days since Congress faced a debacle in the Assembly polls. Rahul Ji, please call a meeting at the earliest."

On Friday, the four Congress MLCs named - MS Prabhakar Rao, T Santosh Kumar, K Damodar Reddy and Akula Lalitha met Legislative Council Chairman K Swamy Goud and requested him to merge them with the Chief Minister Chandrashekar Rao led TRS.

Moments later, the Council secretary issued a bulletin stating that the chairman of the house has recognised the merger.

Earlier, the Congress had six members in the 40-member council. At present, it is only left with two MLCs, Mohammed Ali Shabbir and P Sudhakar Reddy.

Shabbir used to be the Leader of Opposition. However, with the shifting of loyalty and bringing down the number of Congress MLCs down to two only, Shabbir will lose the position because the Congress requires to have one-tenth of the total strength of the House to secure the position.