12 Telangana Cong MLAs join TRS

Hyderabad: In a big jolt to Congress, which thought it was on the comeback trail in Telangana after winning three of the 17 Lok Sabha seats in the state, 12 of its MLAs were recognised as members of the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) by speaker Pocharam Srinivas Reddy after they met him and submitted a letter seeking merger of their group with the ruling party. This leaves Congress with just six MLAs in the 119-member house. Congress is set to lose the status of the second largest party in the house as that honour will now go to the seven-member AIMIM. TRS numbers have now gone up from 90 to 102 in the assembly.