First session of Telangana Assembly begins

Hyderabad, Jan 17 (IANS) The first session of the newly-elected Telangana Assembly began on Thursday with the legislators taking oath.

Chief Minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao was the first to take oath as Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) as the session was chaired by pro-tem Speaker Mumtaz Ahmed Khan of the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM).

The Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) President, who was re-elected from Gajwel constituency in the December election, took oath immediately after the session began. After him, other MLAs took oath in alphabetical order.

Mumtaz Ahmed Khan, the senior most member of the Assembly, on Wednesday took oath as the pro-tem Speaker.

Bharatiya Janata Party's lone MLA Raja Singh has already announced that he will not take oath from Mumtaz Khan as his party was against Hindus.

Before the beginning of the session, KCR, as the Chief Minister is popularly known, and all MLAs of the TRS paid tributes at the Telangana Martyrs' memorial in front of the Assembly building.

The schedule of election to the Speaker will be announced later in the day and the nomination process would commence. The Speaker's election would take place on Friday.

KCR has appealed to the opposition to cooperate in the unanimous election of the Speaker.

Governor E.S.L. Narasimhan will address the House on January 19. The next day the House will introduce the motion of thanks to the Governor's address and adopt the same.

KCR, who led the TRS to a landslide victory, took oath as the Chief Minister for a second term on December 13. Mohammad Mehmood Ali, a member of the Legislative Council, was the only minister to take oath along with the TRS chief.

KCR is likely to expand his cabinet later in January.

TRS bagged 88 seats in the 119-member Assembly.

In December, the government also named Elvis Stephenson as the MLA from the Anglo-Indian community. He also took oath as MLA on Thursday.