HYDERABAD: The first cabinet meeting of the
Telangana government, after it came back to power, on Monday nominated
Elvis Stephenson
as a member of the Telangana assembly representing the Anglo-Indian community.
The cabinet meeting attended by chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao and home minister Mohd Mahmood Ali, held at Pragati Bhavan, recommended the name of Stephenson to governor ESL Narasimhan. After getting consent from Raj Bhavan, chief electoral officer Rajat Kumar notified his nomination as MLA in the afternoon.
Stephenson served as nominated MLA in the 2014-2018 assembly. He shot to fame a couple of years ago when he was allegedly offered Rs 5 crore by then TDP MLA A
Revanth Reddy to vote in favour of the TDP candidate in the MLC elections. Anti-Corruption Bureau officials arrested Revanth Reddy while he was making the offer and the case is still under probe.
According to the CMO, normally it would take several months for an Anglo-Indian representative to be nominated and that would result in the member not taking oath along with other elected members. This would also result in loss of precious time to work as an MLA. To avoid this, the Telangana cabinet, in its first meeting itself, decided to nominate an Anglo-Indian representative to the assembly. Now, Stephenson can take oath along with other MLAs on January 17.
The cabinet meeting also confirmed that MIM’s Mumtaz Ahmed Khan will be the pro-tem speaker who will administer the oath to the new MLAs.