EVM damage case: high drama continues as A.P. police are yet to trace ‘runaway’ Macherla MLA Pinnelli Ramakrishna Reddy
The Hindu
EVM damage case: high drama continues as A.P. police are yet to trace ‘runaway’ Macherla MLA Pinnelli Ramakrishna Reddy. While YSRCP legislators Ainl Kumar and Ambati Rambabu have questioned the ECI on selective video leak pertaining to only Macherla and accused it of being biased, TDP contestant Brahmananda Reddy demands that the accused MLA be disqualified immediately.
The high-voltage political drama over the whereabouts and possible arrest of Pinnelli Ramakrishna Reddy, the incumbent ruling YSRCP Macherla legislator and contestant from the same constituency again, continues.
The YSRCP legislator had first made headlines when he allegedly left for Hyderabad while being under house arrest. He had landed in fresh trouble a couple of days ago when a video clip, purportedly of the CCTV camara footage, went viral in public domain, in which the accused MLA was allegedly seen vandalising the Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) and the VVPAT machine at Polling Station No. 202 in the constituency on the polling day on May 13.
Though the incident had happened on May 13, the police did not include Mr. Ramakrishna Reddy in the list of accused in the initial FIR, but named him as A1 in the case only on May 20. Later, the Election Commission of India (ECI) had ordered the Andhra Pradesh Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) and the Director General of Police to arrest him within a time-frame.
The CEO had on May 22 gone on record stating that the police, with the help of their counterparts in Telangana, were searching for the accused MLA, and the DGP informed that he would be arrested very shortly.
But, as of May 23, there was no progress in the case.
Meanwhile, sources in the Police Department said that the accused MLA was not in Andhra Pradesh and hence it would be difficult to trace him. They further said that several teams had been on the job, and it would be revealed to the media as soon as the police arrested him.
In the backdrop of the issue kicking up a stink, YSRCP legislators Anil Kumar Yadav, who was contesting for the Lok Sabha from Narasaraopet, and Ambati Rambabu, Water Resources Minister and contestant from Sattenapalli Assembly constituency, have quickly come out in defence of Mr. Ramakrishna Reddy.
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