Swamy Goud Elected Telangana Council Chairman

TRS MLC Swamy Goud was elected as the Chairman of the Telangana State Legislative Council on Wednesday.

Swamy Goud secured 21 votes to win the elections, while in a dramatic twist, the Congress party announced its withdrawal from the contest after the beginning of polling.

The election process began immediately after the commencement of the session at 11am on Wednesday. However, the Leader of the Opposition D Srinivas raised objections to the elections while accusing the ruling TRS of encouraging defections. He said that instead of for handling public issues, the Council's session had been convened only to elect the Chairman.

Refuting the allegations, Legislative Affairs Minister T Harish Rao said that the session was convened following a notification issued by the Governor.

However, Srinivas refused to buy his contention, and alleged that the election for the Chairman's post was held on Wednesday to influence the elections of the chairmen of local bodies, ZPTC and MPTCs to be held on Thursday.

He also objected to the conduct of the elections by using the secret ballot method.

Meanwhile, the Council's in-charge Chairman Nethi Vidyasagar Rao began the process of elections at 11:45am, and the first and second votes were cast by Mahmood Ali and Nayani Narasimha Reddy respectively.

The trouble began when the Assembly Secretary announced the name of D Srinivas. The Congress MLCs rushed into the well and started shouting slogans against the government. The situation turned more serious when TRS MLC P Sudhakar Reddy and Congress MLC Mohammad Ali Shabbir pushed each other in the House.

Later, Srinivas announced the withdrawal of the Congress party's candidate Farooq Hussain from the contest, and staged a walk-out along with his partymen.

The process of the election continued, and out of the 35 MLCs, 21 exercised their vote in favour of Swamy Goud

Later, Vidyasagar Rao announced the election of Swamy Goud, who was later escorted to the Chair by Deputy CM Mahmood Ali, Home Minister Nayani Narasimha Reddy, Legislative Affairs Minister T Harish Rao, and MLCs including Ameenual Hassan Jaferi, K Yadav Reddy, Prof Nageshwara Rao and Mohammad Saleem, among others. (INN)