Hyderabad: Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) leader Chennamaneni Ramesh has run into trouble after he concealed his German citizenship and misled the judiciary about it, resulting in him being slapped with a fine of Rs 30 lakh and censure from the Telangana High Court.
Being an Indian citizen is among the foremost requisites to be elected to a state or central legislature (Parliament) in the country.
Even as his Indian citizenship has been in dispute for 15 years now, Ramesh represented the Vemulawada assembly constituency till 2023, first elected in 2009 on a Telugu Desam Party (TDP) ticket.
It was Congress’ Adi Srinivas, defeated by Ramesh at Vemulawada four times till 2018, who had reached out to the central government to annull his rival’s Indian citizenship. Ramesh had then moved the Telangana High Court, which directed the Centre to re-examine his case.
The BRS leader had then submitted to the court that he had relinquished his German citizenship. On Monday, the high court dismissed his petition seeking review of the Ministry of Home Affairs’ 2019 notice stating him as a German citizen.
Ramesh’s 2010 election in a by-poll too was nullified in 2013 by the then Andhra Pradesh High Court, on the same grounds. However, the MLA obtained a stay order from the Supreme Court.
Thereafter, Ramesh won the 2014 and 2018 polls too, after Telangana creation, defeating Adi Srinivas.
Of the Rs 30 lakh fine, the court said, Rs 25 lakh should be paid to Adi, who has been fighting Ramesh’s Indian citizenship claims in the courts and outside, since the last several years.
Adi, the present Vemulawada MLA from the Congress, welcomed the decision of the high court. “The Centre has long back declared Ramesh a non-Indian citizen. I am glad even the court has today held up the MHA orders. Apart from the fine imposed, there should be some action against him for misleading the system, courts and serving as MLA, for many years, breaking the rules,” he told ThePrint.
“Ramesh claimed he relinquished German citizenship and that he will become stateless by MHA orders. The facts are the opposite as presented by the centre – he retained German citizenship all along, and renewing his passport periodically,” Rohit Rao, Adi Srinivas’s counsel, told ThePrint. “He also applied for an OCI card in September 2019, which itself proves he is not an Indian citizen.”
Chennamaneni did not respond to calls regarding his response to the high court’s verdict. This report will be updated as and when a response is received. Some news reports stated that he is exploring the possibility of appealing against the HC verdict which upheld the MHA decison denying him Indian citizenship.
ThePrint profiles the career and background of the four-time MLA and how the controversy started about his citizenship.
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What’s the row about
Hailing from an influential family of politicians in central Telangana, Chennamaneni is from the same landowning Velama caste as BRS supremo and former CM K. Chandrasekhar Rao. He had switched from the TDP to the then Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) and was elected again in the 2010 by-polls, at the height of the statehood movement.
Ramesh was born in 1956 to a family of freedom fighters and politicians in Karimnagar. His father was the veteran Communist leader, Ch. Rajeswara Rao. He is related to Bharatiya Janata Party leader and former Maharashtra governor Ch. Vidyasagar Rao.
Ramesh moved to Germany for his higher education, and completed his Ph.D. in 1987 from Humboldt University, settling in that country and obtaining citizenship in 1993.
For at-least three times, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has dismissed the citizenship claim of Ramesh, a four-time MLA in Andhra Pradesh and now Telangana.
In its November 2019 order, the MHA had said Ramesh had obtained Indian citizenship “by playing fraud upon the government” and concealing the fact that he was not in continuous residence in India for one year before submitting his application in March 2008.
His election affidavit from 2018 states his profession as social work, and shows he draws an income of Rs 2.5 lakh per annum from farm lands, as well as Rs 12 lakh per annum from a firm called TFSS. His properties include a house in Berlin, while his wife is employed in Germany, with her income listed as Rs 50 lakh per annum.
With the intention of contesting elections, Ramesh reapplied for Indian citizenship in March 2008. But once he had won the election, his opponent Adi Srinivas filed a complaint with the MHA that Ramesh had visited Germany during the one year of continuous stay that’s mandatory to obtain Indian citizenship. Srinivas had also approached the Hyderabad High Court.
“His Indian citizen application is based on fake documents. Out of 365 days required, Ramesh was present in India for only 96 days,” Srinivas, who has contested against Ramesh in every subsequent election and lost, had earlier told ThePrint.
Srinivas finally managed to win the seat in the 2023 polls, when Ramesh was out of the fray. KCR’s decision to keep him out was attributed to the ongoing legal dispute over his citizenship. Nevertheless, the then CM appointed Ramesh as his government’s advisor on agriculture affairs for a five-year period, also giving him a cabinet rank. The BRS however lost the polls.
In August 2013 too, the AP High Court had annulled Ramesh’s election to the assembly, reportedly on the same grounds. Ramesh approached the Supreme Court, which stayed the HC order of his disqualification, but stated that he cannot vote in the assembly.
Ramesh’s Indian citizenship was first revoked in August 2017, and his review petition was also dismissed by the MHA in December 2017
“The applicant’s plea that he is a champion of public good was also considered u/s 10(3) of the Citizenship Act and it was felt that as a public representative, his responsibility towards the society and the nation was even more and that he should have shown impeccable integrity to set an example for others,” stated the MHA.
Ramesh challenged the earlier MHA orders in the Hyderabad High Court, which, in July 2019, referred the case back to the MHA for reconsideration.
The MHA notified its decision in November 2019, saying that Ramesh’s “misrepresentation/concealment of fact misled the GoI in making its decision initially.”
The ministry stated that if he had revealed the fact that he had not resided in India for one year before making the application, he would not have been granted citizenship in the first place.
“As a member of the esteemed legislative assembly, he is part of the august body which takes decisions affecting the fate of millions of citizens. If deprivation in this case is not held on the grounds that he is not involved in terrorism, espionage, serious organised crime or war crime, it would become a precedent and many more such persons may obtain Indian citizenship by concealing the material facts and by misleading the government of India,” the ministry stated, adding that it is “not conducive to public good” that Ramesh continues to be a citizen of India.
(Edited by Tony Rai)
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