All 22 BRS MLAs Suspended From Telangana Assembly Amid Protests Over Police Action
All 22 members of the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) in the Telangana Assembly, including party working president K T Rama Rao, were suspended for the remainder of the monsoon session on Wednesday after they disrupted proceedings by entering the well of the House.
What Triggered the Protest
Soon after the Assembly convened, BRS legislators raised slogans demanding justice and pressed for an adjournment motion seeking a debate on the alleged high-handedness of police against the party's women MLAs, who they said were stopped and manhandled at the Assembly gate. The party also wanted the House to take up alleged threatening remarks by some ruling Congress members directed at BRS chief K Chandrasekhar Rao, along with what it described as a deteriorating law-and-order situation in the state.
Speaker Gaddam Prasad Kumar rejected the adjournment motion and suggested the BRS raise its concerns through other channels, but the legislators refused to return to their seats despite repeated appeals from the Speaker, Deputy Chief Minister Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka and Legislative Affairs Minister D Sridhar Babu.
Suspension Follows Escalating Exchange
As BRS members continued their protest in the well of the House, Congress legislators countered with their own grievance, referencing media reports of purification rituals allegedly performed by BRS functionaries near K Chandrasekhar Rao's farmhouse after a Dalit rights protest in Siddipet. Deputy Chief Minister Vikramarka accused the BRS of insulting the Speaker and warned that intimidation of the chair would not be tolerated, displaying photographs he said showed the rituals in question.
With the impasse unresolved, Minister Sridhar Babu moved a motion to suspend the protesting members, which the Speaker accepted. The suspended MLAs include senior BRS leaders such as T Harish Rao, G Jagadish Reddy, Gangula Kamalakar and Kaushik Reddy, effectively sidelining the party's entire legislative presence for the rest of the session. BRS holds 37 seats in the 119-member Assembly, though only those present in the House at the time were formally suspended.
Political Stakes for the Opposition
The suspension marks one of the most significant confrontations between the ruling Congress and the BRS opposition since the party lost power in Telangana, and comes at a moment when BRS has been seeking to reassert itself as the primary opposition voice in the state. The clash over alleged police conduct toward women legislators is likely to keep tensions high between the two sides even after the Assembly session concludes, with BRS expected to carry the issue into public campaigns outside the House.
For the Congress government, managing the optics of suspending an entire opposition bloc — while simultaneously pressing its own charges about the Siddipet incident — will test its ability to control the narrative around law and order and minority relations in the state as both parties look ahead to the next round of political contests in Telangana.
This is an original summary based on public reporting. See our editorial policy for how we source, write, and correct our stories.
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