The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the disqualification of Danam Nagender as a member of the Telangana Legislative Assembly, ruling that his decision to contest the 2024 Lok Sabha election on a Congress ticket while being a Bharat Rashtra Samiti (BRS) MLA attracted the anti-defection provisions of the Constitution. The court dismissed Nagender’s challenge to the Telangana high court order that had disqualified him with effect from April 23, 2024.
A bench headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant and comprising justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana said there was no ground to interfere with the high court judgment.
BRS MLA Padi Kaushik Reddy and BJP legislature party leader Alleti Maheshwar Reddy had approached the Telangana assembly Speaker seeking Nagender’s disqualification, arguing that his decision to contest the Lok Sabha election on a Congress ticket amounted to voluntarily giving up membership of the BRS. The BRS and BJP subsequently approached the Telangana High Court challenging the Speaker’s decision. It also held that the Khairatabad assembly seat had consequently fallen vacant.
Nagender was elected from Khairatabad in the November 2023 Telangana assembly elections on a BRS ticket. He joined the Congress in March 2024 and later contested the Secunderabad Lok Sabha election on a Congress ticket while continuing as an MLA. He was among 10 BRS MLAs who moved to the Congress after the 2023 assembly elections. Speaker Gaddam Prasad Kumar dismissed the disqualification petitions on March 11, 2026. On September 18, a division bench of Chief Justice Aparesh Kumar Singh and justice GM Mohiuddin set aside the Speaker’s order and disqualified Nagender under Paragraph 2(1)(a) of the Tenth Schedule. The court held that he stood disqualified from April 23, 2024, when he contested the Secunderabad parliamentary election as a Congress candidate while being a BRS MLA.
After the Supreme Court dismissed his plea, Nagender said he was confident of returning to the assembly and claimed he continued to enjoy the support of voters in Khairatabad. BRS working president KT Rama Rao described the verdict as a “supreme slap” to Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Revanth Reddy. He alleged that the two leaders had sought to “steal a mandate through defections” and believed defected legislators could be protected through the Speaker.
