Hyderabad, Sept. 24 -- Engineering defections from the opposition Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) seems to have become a burden for the ruling Congress in Telangana as the party is in no mood to contest by elections. Senior Congress leaders said that the party is not in the best of shape in terms of public opinion and has hence more or less told the 10 BRS MLAs to say that they never switched sides.

In recent months, the Supreme Court told the Telangana Speaker to decide the issue in a time-bound manner. The twist was that the BRS MLAs in turn informed the Speaker that they are still with the BRS and that they never defected the Congress. In case any MLA shifts side, they have to vacate the seat and a by-election has to be held.

This howev...