Telangana: Akbar Owaisi made pro tem speaker, BJP MLAs to skip oath

The newly-elected MLAs of Telangana would take oath during the first session of the Legislative Assembly scheduled to be held on Saturday.

Pro tem Speaker and All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen MLA Akbaruddin Owaisi will administer oath to the legislators on Saturday.

Bharatiya Janata Party MLA-elect Raja Singh, however, voiced opposition to Akbaruddin Owaisi's appointment as the pro tem Speaker and said he and other saffron party MLAs would not participate in the oath taking event with Owaisi presiding over the proceedings.

The session is scheduled to begin at 11 am and Akbaruddin Owaisi would act as the pro tem Speaker, a Government Order (GO) said.

Raja Singh, in a video release, asserted that he would never take oath 'as long as he is alive' in front of AIMIM.

Can I take oath in front of a person (Akbaruddin Owaisi) who made anti-Hindu comments in the past? asked Raja Singh.

He recalled that he did not take oath as an MLA when a member of AIMIM was the pro tem Speaker in 2018.

Chief Minister Revanth Reddy earlier alleged a tacit understanding among the Bharat Rashtra Samiti, the AIMIM and the BJP and he should now clarify as to what is the relation between his party and the AIMIM, Raja Singh demanded.

There are many senior MLAs who could have been made pro tem speaker but Reddy was seeking to appease minorities and AIMIM leaders, he alleged.

BJP in a release said the newly-elected MLAs (8) would meet state party president G Kishan Reddy on Saturday morning and later offer prayers at the Goddess Bhagya Lakshmi temple at Charminar in Hyderabad.

State Congress spokesperson Chamala Kiran Kumar Reddy countered Raja Singh saying that pro tem Speaker is a matter related to Constitution and that some senior MLA has to be appointed to the post.

It does not show that we are with the AIMIM by making him pro tem Speaker.

"We don't have to polarise a community to survive in politics," the Congress spokesperson added.

Meanwhile, the BRS said its MLAs would have a meeting at 9 am at the party headquarters here (before the commencement of the session).