VIJAYAWADA: YSRCP on Friday suspended four MLAs for voting for TDP in the just-concluded MLC elections from the assembly quota.
TDP candidate Panchumarthi Anuradha won the seat with 23 first priority votes of which four were from YSRCP. The party suspended Kotamreddy Sridhar Reddy, Anam Ramanarayana Reddy and Mekapati Chandrasekhar Reddy, all three from Nellore district, and Undavalli Sridevi from Guntur.
Party general secretary and government advisor Sajjala Ramakrishna Reddy announced the suspension of the MLAs. He said the party had conducted internal investigation on the cross-voting, which led the party's seventh candidate lose the election.
Ramakrishna Reddy said the party fielded seven candidates based on the numbers. "We have 151 MLAs. We also have the support of four rebel TDP MLAs and one Jana Sena MLA taking out strength to 156," Ramakrishna Reddy said.
Two MLAs droppedHe said that they have already dropped two MLAs, Kotamreddy Sridhar Reddy and Anam Ramanarayana Reddy, from their count. "After dropping these two MLAs, our strength stood at 149 with five MLAs support from outside," he said.
Thus "we have given 22 MLAs to each of our seven candidates to win the election, while the TDP has just 19 MLAs," he said.
Ramakrishna Reddy alleged that former chief minister and TDP president N Chandrababu Naidu purchased 23 MLAs between 2014 and 2019 and purchased four MLAs this time. He also alleged that TDP had paid a huge amount of money to these four MLAs to win the election.