By IANS,
Hyderabad : The Telugu Desam Party (TDP) Friday expelled its MP D.K. Adikeshavulu Naidu for defying the party and voting in favour of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government in the trust vote.
The decision was announced in Nalgonda by TDP president N. Chandrababu Naidu who said action had been taken against the MP for violating the party code.
Chandrababu Naidu had issued the MP a show cause notice, seeking an explanation from him. The TDP chief had said the party would take action only after verifying the record with the Lok Sabha secretariat.
Ironically, Adikeshavulu Naidu’s vote was declared invalid by Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee. The TDP’s inquiries with the Lok Sabha secretariat revealed that he voted in favour of the Manmohan Singh government but it was declared invalid since he cast his vote both electronically and by a slip.
Though the MP from Chittoor denied that he had voted for the government, saying it was a media creation, he maintained that the India-US civil nuclear deal that was the central issue of the trust vote was in the country’s interest.
Adikeshavulu Naidu is the second MP to be expelled by the party for voting for the Congress-led government during the July 22 trust vote.
On Wednesday, a day after the confidence motion in the Lok Sabha, the party ousted Manda Jagannatham, who represents the Nagarkurnool Lok Sabha constituency. Jagannatham met Congress president Sonia Gandhi the same day and expressed his wish to join Congress party.
The cross-voting by two of the six TDP MPs dealt a severe jolt to Chandrababu Naidu, who had been at the forefront of the effort to defeat the trust motion.
The speculation is that Adikeshavulu Naidu will join the party to be floated by Telugu film actor Chiranjeevi next month.