Telangana Rashtra Samithi president and chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao’s letter to Congress leader Komatireddy Venkat Reddy extending best wishes on the latter’s birthday landed the TRS in a lot of embarrassment.
For, in the letter as well as on the cover page, KCR referred to Komatireddy as Nalgonda MLA.
The fact is that Komatireddy and another MLA S A Sampath Kumar from Alampur were expelled from the state assembly for their misbehaviour during the budget session and though the high court had revoked their expulsion, the TRS is still fighting a legal battle in the court challenging the revocation.
Taking advantage of KCR’s letter, Komatireddy demanded that since the chief minister himself acknowledged that he is an MLA, the government should restore all the privileges of the legislator including security. They even submitted a letter to the Director General of Police to that effect.
Though KCR realised his mistake, he preferred to remain tight-lipped. Instead, he asked the TRS leaders to give an explanation.
They sought to turn the blame on to the clerical staff in the CMO, who just copied and pasted the MLA’s address from the old address book in the computer.
They pointed out that the assembly records still showed vacancies against Nalgonda and Alampur assembly constituencies.
TRS Nalgonda unit president and Telangana State Forest Development Corporation Chairman Banda Narender Reddy said it was a common practice for the Chief Minister’s Office to convey birthday wishes to MLAs and former MLAs on their birthday.
“It is just courtesy letter and not an official document for Komatireddy to claim benefits,” he said.
He, however, did not explain why KCR had blindly signed the letter, without even looking at the address just below his signature, which clearly mentioned Komatireddy as an MLA!
