BRS to stay away from voting in V-P election

THe Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) on mon decided to desist from voting in the Vice-Presidential election scheduled for tues, company workings president KT Rama Rao announced.“The decision was taken at a meeting of party president and former Telangana chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao after discussions with party leaders,” KTR said, adding that the party’s Rajya Sabha MPs had been asked to stay away from the polling.The Vice-Presidential election was necessitated by the resignation of Jagdeep Dhankhar.The BRS has four Rajya Sabha members and has no representation in the Lok Sabha.In the 2022 Vice-Presidential elections, the BRS (then known as Telangana Rashtra Samithi) which had 16 MPs, including nine Lok Sabha members, had voted for opposition candidate Margaret Alva.KTR said that though both the contesting candidates -- NDA nominee CP Radhakrishnan and INDIA bloc’s Justice Sudarshan Reddy, were good people, the BRS had chosen to abstain from voting in order to highlight the concerns of Telangana farmers who were being ignored by both the BJP at the Centre and the ruling Congress government in the state.“The decision to skip the Vice-Presidential election this time is an expression of “anguish” of Telangana’s farmers over the shortage of urea in the state,” he said.The BRS working president accused both the BJP and the Congress of failing to address the shortage issue.He said that the shortage is such that scuffles are taking place among farmers while waiting in queues for urea.“The BRS could have exercised the option of NOTA had it been available in the Vice-Presidential election. Since it is not there, we are abstaining from voting,” he said.Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee spokesperson and Bhongir MP Chamala Kiran Kumar Reddy lashed out at the BRS for its decision to abstain from the Vice-Presidential elections.“It is absurd on the part of the BRS to claim it won’t vote in the Vice-Presidential election on the pretext of urea shortage in the state,” he said.Pointing out that the BRS already has zero seats in the Lok Sabha, he ridiculed the party for making excuses. “Ever since the party shed its original name TRS (Telangana Rashtra Samithi) and rebranded itself as BRS, it had distanced itself from the Telangana sentiment and effectively forgotten the very cause it was born for,” he said.The Congress MP said Justice Sudarshan Reddy, who is contesting as the opposition candidate in the Vice-Presidential poll, does not belong to any political party and is a person with a good understanding of democracy.“By refusing to vote for such a candidate and choosing to stay away from the election, the BRS has shown that it has become an irrelevant party both in the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha,” Reddy said.The BJP did not comment on the BRS decision.