A day after four Rajya Sabha lawmakers of the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) switched over to the BJP, a group of MPs of the Andhra party submitted a written complaint to Rajya Sabha chairman M Venkaiah Naidu on Friday.
YS Chowdary, CM Ramesh, Garikapati Mohan Rao and TG Venkatesh on Thursday were inducted into the BJP. The four had also met Naidu and urged him to approve the merger of the TDP Legislature Party with the saffron party in the Upper House.
Jayadev Galla, one of the TDP MPs who met Naidu on Friday, said that the merger of a political party can take place only at an organisational level, as per the Tenth Schedule in the Constitution. 
“The four members have further claimed to have conducted a meeting of the TDP Legislature Party in Rajya Sabha on June 19 to pass the resolution to merge with the BJP,” said the letter to Naidu. “I would like to bring to your kind notice that the TDP Legislature Party in the Rajya Sabha consists of six members and no notice had been sent to the members with regard to the convening of the said meeting. Hence, it may be considered that no such meeting has been conducted.”
“Yesterday, four Rajya Sabha members of TDP had given a letter saying that they are merging the legislature party in Rajya Sabha and since they have 2/3rd majority, it should be accepted without any disqualification,” said Galla. “Having gone through the law, what we now understand is that the merger of a political party has to take place at only organisational level. It cannot take place at the legislature party level. Since the TDP and the BJP have not merged at the organisational level, this is not a legal merger.”
