T Raja Singh, who is known for his fiery speeches, has 43 criminal cases pending against him.
Highlights
- Lone Telangana BJP lawmaker T Raja Singh refused to take oath
- Asaduddin Owaisi's party MLA was named pro-tem Speaker of the assembly
- Mr Singh dubbed AIMIM a "dirty party" and Telangana's KCR its "follower"
The lone lawmaker of the BJP in Telangana has refused to take oath in the state assembly in front of the pro-tem speaker, who is from AIMIM (All India Majlis-E-Ittehadul Muslimeen). Mumtaz Ahmed Khan from Asaduddin Owaisi's party was named pro-tem Speaker yesterday.
But controversial lawmaker Raja Singh, who retained his constituency Goshamahal in the suburbs of Hyderabad, posted a video message on Twitter in which he said, "I don't want to take oath in front of a pro-tem speaker whose party wants to vanish Hindus... They never sing Vande Mataram and never say 'Bharat Mata ki Jai'."
AIMIM, which was tagged "friendly party" by Mr Rao in the run-up to the elections, had retained the seven seats it had won last time. In a goodwill gesture, Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao had named the lawmaker from Mr Owaisi's party as the pro-tem Speaker. Mr Owaisi had tweeted his thanks to the Chief Minister.
Dubbing AIMIM a "dirty party" and the Chief Minister a "follower" of the AIMIM and the Nizam, Mr Singh announced that he would neither go to the Governor's House for tomorrow's oath ceremony, nor will he go to the assembly the next day.
The decision to have a protem-Speaker for the next three days, was made at night, "you know what that means", he said.
Mr Singh, who is known for his fiery speeches, has 43 criminal cases pending against him. Known for his provocative speeches, the lawmaker had resigned from the party last year in the run-up to Eid, so he would be able to "act" against cow slaughter without embarrassing the party.