Senior TRS legislator Pocharam Srinivas Reddy to be Telangana assembly’s Speaker

Six-time Telangana Rashtra Samithi MLA and former agriculture minister Pocharam Srinivas Reddy is all set to get elected unanimously as the Speaker of the newly-constituted state assembly in Telangana.

Reddy, an MLA from Banswada in Nizamabad district, filed six sets of nomination papers on Thursday afternoon. His name was proposed by TRS president and chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao and supported by TRS MLAs KT Rama Rao and T Harish Rao, Congress MLA Gandra Venkata Ramana Reddy and a couple of All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen or MIM MLAs.

Reddy will be formally declared elected as the Speaker in the assembly on Friday.

Earlier, KCR, as the Telangana chief minister is popularly called, spoke to leaders of all political parties and requested them to ensure the unanimous election of the Speaker. While all the parties accepted his request, the Congress in its legislature party meeting held on Thursday decided against fielding its candidate for the Speaker’s post, paving the way for Reddy’s unanimous election.

According to a TRS legislature party leader, KCR is likely to nominate newly-elected woman MLA Rekha Naik as the deputy speaker of the assembly. A formal announcement is expected to be made on Friday.

In the morning, the newly-elected MLAs took their oath in the assembly, which met for the first time after being constituted on December 12 following the declaration of results of the assembly elections. Pro-tem speaker Mumtaz Ahmed Khan of MIM administered the oath to the members, starting with the chief minister.

Out of the total strength of 119, as many as 114 MLAs took their oath on Thursday.

The TRS had won 88 MLAs, Congress 19, MIM seven, Telugu Desam Party and independents two each and the Bharatiya Janata Party won only one seat in the recent assembly elections.