Hours before the commencement of the Budget session of the state legislature, the YSRCP filed a petition with Assembly Speaker Kodela Sivaprasada Rao, seeking disqualification of the eight MLAs who have "defected" to the Telugu Desam Party since last month.
A delegation of the party MLAs, led by deputy leader Jyothula Nehru, met Rao and filed the petition, seeking action against the MLAs as per 'Schedule X' of the Constitution.
"Crossing over to another party after getting elected on one party's symbol is unethical. We requested the Speaker to immediately take action against these MLAs in accordance with the Anti-Defection Act.
"The Speaker assured us that he would go by the rules and take a decision at the earliest," Nehru told reporters after the meeting with the Speaker.
The YSRC leader also said the party had submitted some material evidence like video recordings and audio clips against the MLAs to establish their defection.
YSRC leaders had earlier toyed with the idea of moving a no-confidence motion against the TDP government led by Chandrababu Naidu as a strategy to pave ground for disqualification of the deserters.
The party strategy was that the no-trust motion would give it a context to issue a whip to all its MLAs and disqualification proceedings could be initiated against those violating the party whip.
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