Suspended MLC Mallanna Accuses Telangana CM of Secretly Backing BJP

Hyderabad, March  (IANS) Member of Telangana Legislative Council Teenmaar Mallanna, recently suspended from the Congress for anti-party activities, claimed on Wednesday that Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy was indirectly supporting the BJP.

Addressing a press conference here, the MLC alleged that the Chief Minister is destroying the Congress in the state by indirectly helping the BJP.

He blamed Revanth Reddy for the defeat of the Congress at the hands of the BJP in Mahabubnagar and Malkajgiri Lok Sabha constituencies last year.

Mahabubnagar is the home district of Revanth Reddy and he was elected from the Malkajgiri constituency in 2019.

The MLC said: "If the Chief Minister had performed well in the first six months, the BJP would not have won eight seats in Telangana and thus the Narendra Modi government would not have retained power at the Centre."

The Backward Classes (BC) leader lashed out at CM Reddy's loyalists for questioning his political existence and claimed that it was because of him that Revanth Reddy was occupying the chair of the chief minister.

Mallanna asked Revanth Reddy to introspect why there was so much resentment among people against the Congress government within a year.

The MLC was suspended from Congress on March 1 after he failed to respond to the show-cause notice issued by the party's disciplinary committee for his act of burning the report of the government's BC caste survey.

Mallanna had used highly objectionable words against the report and the Congress government. He also continued to attack the party on various platforms despite warnings by the leadership.

Mallanna said despite the suspension, he would continue his movement for uplifting the BCs. He reiterated that the caste survey conducted in the state is full of "inaccuracies".

The MLC alleged that the survey report exaggerated the population of upper castes while trying to suppress the BCs.

He said the caste survey should have been a model for the entire country.

"I had hoped that the survey would make Rahul Gandhi walk with his head high. The survey will be a model only if it is conducted transparently," he said and threw a challenge for a debate on the survey report.

"If what I said about the caste survey report is wrong, why the state government has given more time to people to give their details for the survey," he asked.

Mallanna, whose real name is Chintapandu Naveen, runs a YouTube channel and has been a strong critic of former Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao when the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) was in power.

He was elected as MLC in the by-election from the Warangal-Nalgonda-Khammam graduate MLC constituency in June 2024 with the support of the Congress.