PIL in apex court against TRS-forced polls

HYDERABAD : A prominent advocate and a Dalit leader from Eluru have approached the President of India, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and the Chief Election Commissioner, complaining that the Telangana Rashtra Samiti is wasting public money by unnecessarily forcing by-elections. The Andhra Pradesh United Lawyers Front president, Mr G. Ronald Raju, and a Dalit leader, Bejjam Rajesh Puthra, appealed to the Chief Justice to consider their complaint a Public Interest Litigation. In their petition, they said that the TRS leaders were tendering resignations again and again and were forcing frequent elections despite being elected to serve five years. They demanded that the TRS be de-recognised and its MPs, MLAs and MLCs who tendered resignations recently be barred from contesting the upcoming bypolls.The four TRS MPs, K. Chandrasekhar Rao, Vinod Kumar, Ravindra Naik and Madhusudhana Reddy, resigned from the Lok Sabha on March 3 to protest against the Congress not taking initiative to form a separate Telangana. In addition, 16 TRS MLAs also resigned from the Assembly citing the same reason. All the TRS leaders were planning to contest from the same constituencies in the ensuing bypolls to prove the strength of the Telangana sentiment. Through this, they were wasting crores of rupees and were making a mockery of the constitutional spirit and democratic values, the complaint said.
andhracafe.com; Updated: 03-28-2008