Pocharam Declared New Telangana Assembly Speaker

Former minister and six-time MLA Pocharam Srinivas Reddy was elected Speaker of the Telangana Assembly unopposed on Friday.

Pro tem Speaker Mumtaz Ahmed Khan declared the election of Reddy as Speaker as no other member had filed a nomination for the Speaker's post before the deadline, 5 pm on January 17.

Khan then congratulated Reddy on his election and invited him to occupy the chair.

Later, leader of the House and Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao, TRS MLA Etela Rajender, and Opposition leaders including TPCC president and Congress MLA N Uttam Kumar Reddy and MIM MLA Ahmed Bin Abdullah Balala escorted the newly elected Speaker to the Chair.

Addressing the House later, KCR said that he was very happy over the election of Pocharam Srinivas Reddy as Speaker. He said that in order to make Reddy's election unanimous he had spoken to Opposition party leaders N Uttam Kumar Reddy (Congress), Dr K Laxman (BJP) and Asaduddin Owaisi (MIM) and had urged them to extend their support, and thanked them for obliging following his request.

Heaping encomiums on Reddy, the Chief Minister said that Reddy had participated in the 1969 separate Telangana agitation as a student leader, and had even sacrificed his degree from the Osmania University as he had been harassed and kept in the Saifabad police station by the then rulers. Reddy had started his political career in 1977 as the Nizamabad DCCB Chairman and had since discharged several responsibilities, including as cabinet minister thrice, KCR noted.

The stint of Reddy as Agriculture minister in the previous government would be remembered by one and all, the CM said - he claimed that Pocharam was responsible for the successful launch and implementation of farmer welfare schemes including Rythu Bandhu and Rythu Bhima, and the machination schemes in the state. KCR said that he often called Reddy "Lakshmi Putrudu" for his proactive role in ensuring the growth of the farmers and the agriculture sector of the state, and expressed hope that Reddy would bring a good name to the position of Speaker.

Congress MLA Gandra Venkata Ramana Reddy also heaped praises on Pocharam Srinivas Reddy as an embodiment of a true leader. He urged the Speaker to give adequate opportunities to the Opposition MLAs to raise the problems of the people in the House.

MIM leader Balala said that he was confident that the new Speaker would succeed in running the House smoothly. Later, leaders of all other political party spoke in the House and congratulated the newly elected Speaker.

Reddy is the second Assembly Speaker from Nizamabad. TRS leader Suresh Reddy was the first Speaker of the Assembly from the region, but Pocharam Srinivas Reddy is the first Speaker from the district after the creation of Telangana as a separate state. He represents the Banswada assembly segment.

Reddy began his political career in 1976. He was first elected as the chairman of Desaipet Single Window in 1977. He then served as the chairman of the DCCB in the undivided Nizamabad district in 1987. He won as an MLA for the first time in 1994 from the Banswada Assembly constituency on a TDP ticket. He became Minister For Housing in 1998.

In the 1999 elections, Reddy registered his second successive win from the same Banswada constituency, and was made Minister For Panchayat Raj, Mines And Water Resources.

Reddy lost the 2004 election, but bounced back in 2009 by winning the Assembly election for the same seat. In the year 2011 Reddy resigned from the TDP and his MLA post, and joined the Telangana Rashtra Samiti. He was re-elected to the Assembly for the fourth time in the ensuing by-elections held for the seat, as a TRS candidate. He actively took part in the Telangana statehood agitation, and won the seat for the fifth time in the 2014 Assembly elections.