Pocharam Unanimous Choice For Assembly Speaker

TRS senior leader and former Agriculture Minister Pocharam Srinivas Reddy, from Nizamabad, filed his nomination for the Telangana Assembly Speaker's post today.

Reddy was only the member who filed the nomination for the post, and got the support of all the Opposition parties including the Congress, the MIM and the BJP.

As leader of the House KCR signed the proposal, which was seconded by senior Congress leader Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka, and other leaders Ahmed Balala, Rekha Naik, Abraham and Talasani Srinivas Yadav.

This makes the election just a formality, and Reddy will be officially announced as the Speaker on January 18 in the House by at 11 am pro tem Speaker Mumtaz Ahmed.

KCR had earlier made a call to the other parties represented in the House and sought their support for the unopposed election of the Speaker. While the MIM and the BJP readily agreed, the Congress extended its support on Thursday.

Pocharam will be the second Assembly Speaker in Telangana, after S Madhusudhana Chary who presided over the first Assembly.

TRS woman MLA Rekha Naik is to become Deputy Speaker of the Assembly.

Pocharam Srinivas Reddy was born on February 10, 1949, and began his political career with the Congress. He later joined the TDP in 1984, and he contested from the Banswada Assembly constituency in 1994 as a TDP candidate and won with a majority of over 57,000 votes. But he lost in 2004 to Bajireddy Govardhan of the Congress. He quit the TDP in 2011 and resigned as MLA to join the TRS to actively participate in the Telangana statehood movement. He went on to contest that year's by-elections and won with a margin of over 49,000 votes against Congress candidate Sangam Srinivas Goud. He was made a politburo member of the TRS on March 24, 2011. After the bifurcation of united Andhra Pradesh he was re-elected from the Banswada Assembly constituency in 2014, and made Agriculture Minister in KCR's cabinet. He was also minister twice in the TDP governments of united AP.