Hyderabad:Speaker fires16 Jagan MLAs

                                                       
In a most incisive move of the rebels’ saga, the AP Assembly Speaker, Mr Nadendla Manohar, late on Friday night, disqualified 16 Congress MLAs from their membership of the House and accepted the resignation of Sobha Nagireddy, ex-MLA of the Praja Rajyam.
 the party whip.
The 16 MLAs disqualified are: Dharmana Krishna Das (Narasannapet), Golla Babu Rao (Payakarao Pet), Pilli Subhash Chandra Bose (Ramachandrap-uram), M. Prasada Raju (Narsapur), Terlam Bala-raju (Polavaram), D. Sucha-rita (Prathipadu), Pinnelli Ramakrishna Reddy (Mac-herla), Balineni Srinivas-ulu Reddy (Ongole), Mekapati Chandrasekhara Reddy (Udayagiri), G. Srinivasulu (Kodur), Gadikota Srikanth Reddy (Rayachoti), Akepati Amar-nadha Reddy (Rajampet), B. Gurunadha Reddy (Ananta-pur), Kapu Ramachandra Reddy (Rayadurg), Y. Chennakesava Reddy (Yemmiganur) and Ms Konda Surekha (Parkal).

All the disqualified MLAs, loyalists of Kadapa MP Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy, had violated the party whip and voted in favour of the No-Confidence Motion that was moved by the Telugu Desam on December 5 last year.
The Speaker’s action was inevitable as he had no option but to axe the members as per 2(1)(A) and (B) of the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution. Though a petition for disqualification of the membership of Ms Nagireddy was also filed by the Praja Rajyam, the Speaker, fearing a legal problem since the merger of the PR with the Congress is still under consideration, thought it better to accept her resignation.
The Speaker, who had completed all the necessary formalities by hearing both the sides on February 2, took further legal opinion before announcing his decision on Friday.
Thirteen of the Congress legislators have been disqualified under 2(1) (B) for violating the party whip and three others — Konda Surekha, Amarnadha Reddy and Gadikota Srikanth Reddy — under 2(1)(A) for indulging in anti-party activities by openly associating with another party, and also under 2(1) (B) for violating

Bypolls will now have to be held for 17 Assembly seats in one go in 11 districts within six months i.e., before September 2, 2012.