Finally, A Rajya Sabha Berth For Abhishek Singhvi From Telangana

The Congress party which could not get senior lawyer Abhishek Manu Singhvi elected from Himachal Pradesh in February this year –he lost the Rajya Sabha election to BJP’s Harsh Mahajan — has been trying to find ways to send him to the upper house. It seems to have finally found a Rajya Sabha vacancy because of defections from BRS to the Congress. Eighty five year-old BRS MP K Keshav  Rao who had two more years in Rajya Sabha in this term, quit as MP, “consequent upon his joining the Congress .” Significantly, the Telangana Government promptly appointed Rao “advisor to the Government with status of Cabinet Minister” on July 6. Keshav Rao making way for Singhvi brings to closure all high drama and efforts to accommodate the learned counsel from AAP’s Delhi quota. Getting AAP MPs like Swati Maliwal or Sanjay Singh to relinquish their RS terms in favour of Singhvi had become too episodic. The Congress finally found a way out when BRS leaders in Telangana began to show interest in joining the party — 6 MLCs, 7 MLAs and one Rajya Sabha MP seemed eager to jump ship.  While chief minister Revanth Reddy saw the   defection of MLCs as an attempt to gain numbers in legislative council, many within his own party say he was executing a BJP plan to finish off the BRS. “Even the BRS guy who defeated me in the assembly election has now joined the Congress,” pointed out an AICC spokesperson, who had contested from Hyderabad.