Citizenship row: TRS MLA gets breather

Hyderabad: Giving a breather to TRS MLA from Vemulawada Chennamaneni Ramesh, Justice A Abhishek Reddy of the Telangana high court on Tuesday posted the case pertaining to his citizenship tussle to five weeks. The MLA’s suspended Indian citizenship issue would take a back seat for now.
It may be recalled following Ramesh challenging the Centre for suspending his Indian citizenship on the ground that he misled the authorities in respect of his German citizenship, the high court had stayed the Centre’s decision till further orders.
Justice Abhishek said this matter needs to be heard at length in a regular court and not in a virtual court. Later, he posted the case to five weeks.
According to Congress leader and Ramesh’s political rival Adi Srinivas, the former acquired a German citizenship and settled there. In April 2009, he came to Vemulawada in Karimnagar only for the purpose of contesting the election there. Srinivas alleged that Ramesh had suppressed certain information to acquire Indian citizenship in order to make himself eligible to contest the election.
“Though Ramesh said he relinquished the German citizenship, he had never done that. In fact, he is still holding a valid German citizenship,” Srinivas said.
The Union home ministry too found certain discrepancies in Ramesh’s version about the period of his mandatory stay in India before re-acquiring his Indian citizenship.
It cancelled his Indian citizenship. Since he is a legislator, it becomes all the more important for him to state correct facts and suppression of facts in this case should be viewed more seriously, the Centre said in its cancellation order.
The Centre even produced proof that Ramesh had flown to Germany in December 2019 to drive home its point that the theory of relinquishment (of German citizenship) propagated by Ramesh was wrong.
Ramesh’s counsel Y Rama Rao has been arguing that the authorities are trying to make an issue out of minor discrepancies and ignoring the fact that Ramesh is a lawfully-elected legislator.
Echoing the sentiments expressed by the Centre, Ravi Kiran Rao, counsel for Srinivas, felt that a legislator trying to mislead institutions is a very serious issue and hence the authorities should not take a lenient view of the matter.