Claims that the CM  turned a deaf ear to the advice by Governor to ensure Srinivas Yadav resigns before he is inducted into the cabinet

Hyderabad: Congress senior leader and former minister Marri Sashidhar Reddy on Monday demanded the dismissal of Minister for Commercial Tax Talasani Srinivas Yadav from State Cabinet. Speaking to media persons here, Sashidhar Reddy said the Constitutional Bench of Supreme Court, in its judgment delivered on February 14, 2007 in the Rajendra Singh Rana Vs Swami Prasad Maurya case, observed that the indecision by the Speaker on the application, seeking disqualification, cannot be merely in the realm of procedure.

He said the judgment and observations of the Constitutional Bench would be binding on all courts. "Srinivas Yadav is guilty of defection under the provisions in Paragraph 2 (1) of the Tenth Schedule. He will stand disqualified from October 29, 2014, when he was admitted to the TRS, whereby he has voluntarily given up his membership of TDP. His continuance as MLA even for a day is illegal and unconstitutional, so also holding office as Minister since December 16, 2014 is illegal, at least after the expiry of six months from the date of taking charge," he said.

The Congress leader claimed that Governor E S L Narasimhan had advised Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao to make Srinivas Yadav resign as MLA before swearing in. "Having been let down by the Chief Minister, the Governor finds himself in an unenviable situation of not being in a position to faithfully discharge his duties to defend, preserve and protect the Constitution of law.

It was an error and Governor should have insisted on resignation being accepted," he said. "The Governor must dismiss him as Minister with immediate effect and direct state government to withdraw all benefits to him as a Minister and also recover salary paid to him between October 30, 2014 and December 15, 2014," he demanded.

He said lessons need to be learnt by Governors in India and from now on, they must insist on resignation being accepted before defected MLAs are made ministers. "Defection of MLAs of different parties to TRS is unethical, illegal, undemocratic and unconstitutional," he said.