BRS members walk out of 3rd PAC meet, protesting selection of Chairman

BRS legislators and members of the PAC after walking out of the meeting, in Hyderabad on Tuesday.
| Photo Credit: By Arrangement

HYDERABAD

The Opposition Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) members in the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of the State Legislature staged a walkout of the committee meeting on Tuesday, protesting the selection of the PAC Chairman.

Party members in the PAC Vemula Prashanth Reddy, Gangula Kamalakar, Satyavathi Rathod and L. Ramana walked out of the third meeting of the committee in a row as there was no response from the government to BRS’ demand to reconsider the PAC Chairman’s selection. They alleged that the ruling Congress party had selected Serilingampally MLA Arekapudi Gandhi, who was elected on BRS ticket but switched his loyalties to the Congress later, in an undemocratic way, against the established tradition and without consulting the Leader of the Opposition K. Chandrasekhar Rao. They stated that it had been the practice for decades to give the PAC Chairman’s post to an Opposition party member in consultation with the Leader of the Opposition.

Speaking to newspersons in the BRS Legislature Party office later, they stated that the party had picked T. Harish Rao for the post but Mr Gandhi was appointed undemocratically. They alleged that the government was not allowing Opposition MLAs to speak as their microphones were switched by the Chairman whenever they tried to speak up.