Centre, State Govt. harassing BRS leaders, tracking their movements, phone calls: Harish Rao

BRS leader accuses BJP of misusing agencies to target opposition, while Congress tracks and pressures BRS MLAs to defect.

Senior leader of the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) and former minister T. Harish Rao has alleged that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led Government at the Centre has been misusing the enforcement and investigating agencies to terrorise the leaders of Opposition parties and make them join it.

Speaking after expressing solidarity to the BRS Patancheru MLA Gudem Mahipal Reddy and his younger brother Madhusudan Reddy at their Patancheru residence on Friday, following raids by the Enforcement Directorate (ED), he said both the Central and State Governments were targeting the Opposition leaders, particularly those of BRS, in Telangana.

Party MLAs Chinta Prabhakar and K. Manik Rao, from MLA Ch. Kranti Kiran, former Forest Development Corporation Chairman V. Pratap Reddy and others accompanied Mr. Harish Rao. He stated that the ED authorities did not find either cash or gold from the resident of Mr. Reddy. Everything was proper with IT returns mentioning income from all sources, yet the ED officials searched the residence for hours with sole aim to harass the Opposition leaders. Mr. Reddy’s family had cooperated with ED by giving all documents and key of cupboards.

He pointed out that the Centre was using different yardsticks for it (BJP) and opposition parties and it was un-moved by the plight of 24 lakh students who appeared for National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) and affected by question paper leak. He sought to know whether huge money changing hands in question paper leakage would not invoke the provisions of Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).

On the ruling Congress party, the BRS leader said it was the Congress party that had recited moral values in the past but it was using all tactics and resources at its disposal for the defection of BRS MLAs to Congress. It was the Congress party that had mentioned in its election manifesto that it would not encourage defections and cancel the membership of those who defect to other parties.

Further, he alleged that the Congress Government in the State was tracking their movements through the intelligence sleuths and by tracking their phone calls. The Congress leaders were making rounds of BRS MLAs asking them to defect to the ruling party and if not heeded, threatening with cases and attacks.