Academician M Kodandaram and journalist Amer Ali Khan on Friday took oath as members of the Telangana Legislative Council.
Council Chairman, G Sukhender Reddy administered the oath at his chambers in the presence of Revenue Minister P Srinivas Reddy, Transport Minister Ponnam Prabhakar, and other Congress leaders.
After taking oath as MLC, Kodandaram thanked Chief Minister Revanth Reddy for nominating him.
He told media persons that he would work to fulfill the aspirations of those who participated in the Telangana movement and laid down their lives.
He said he achieved this position because of the sacrifices of many people.
Kodandaram heads the Telangana Jana Samithi (TJS), which had supported the Congress party in the Assembly elections held in November last year while Amer Ali Khan is news editor of ‘Siasat’, a leading Urdu daily.
Kodandaram, a former professor of political science at Osmania University, had played a key role in the Telangana movement as convenor of the Joint Action Committee (JAC), which included TRS (now BRS).
However, after the formation of Telangana, differences cropped up between Kodandaram and TRS leader K Chandrasekhar Rao.
Amer Ali Khan is the son of ‘Siasat’ chief editor Zahid Ali Khan, who was earlier associated with the TDP and unsuccessfully contested Lok Sabha elections from Hyderabad constituency in 2009.
Both Kodandaram and Amer Ali Khan were nominated to the Council under the governor’s quota after the state Cabinet again sent the recommendation to the governor early this month.
They were nominated as MLCs in January but the High Court had set aside the same in March on the petitions by BRS leaders Dasoju Sravan and Kurra Satyanarayana, whose nominations as MLCs were recommended by the previous BRS government in July 2023 but the same was rejected by then Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan on the ground that the two were “politically aligned persons”.
The High Court had quashed the governor’s decision, rejecting the nominations of Dasoju Sravan and Satyanarayana, and held that the governor can only return the government’s recommendation for reconsideration.
The state Cabinet on August 1 decided to once again recommend nomination of Kodandaram and Amer Ali Khan as MLCs under the governor’s quota.
The decks for the oath-taking were cleared on August 14 when the Supreme Court stayed the operation of the Telangana High Court judgment quashing the decision of then Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan to reject the nomination of BRS leaders as MLCs.
Following the High Court order, the BRS leaders had requested the governor to nominate them as MLCs.
However, as the BRS had lost power to the Congress, the governor rejected the request.
Sravan and Satyanarayana had challenged the governor’s refusal in the Supreme Court.
As the High Court had not passed any orders to the governor to nominate them, they pleaded with the apex court to give direction to the governor to appoint them.
The Supreme Court declined to pass any orders but made it clear that if the state and governor proceed further with appointing Congress nominees in the two vacant slots in the meantime, such appointments would be subject to outcome of the pleas.