Telangana Chief Minister Chandrasekhar Rao claims evidence to nail BJP in bid to poach TRS MLAs
The Hindu
The Telangana CM says ‘some Delhi brokers tried to purchase Telangana self-respect by offering allurements but the four TRS MLAs did not fall to the bait’
Flanked by four Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) MLAs who faced an abortive attempt of defection to the BJP, TRS president and Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao on Sunday asserted that abundant evidence was available to nail the BJP in the whole episode.
“A lot of evidence has been collected. It will be revealed in the coming days,” Mr. Rao said addressing a well-attended election meeting of the TRS at Bangarigadda in the Munugode Assembly constituency, which is going to a byelection on November 3. The MLAs — Pilot Rohit Reddy, Guvvala Balaraju, Beeram Harshavardhan Reddy and Rega Kantha Rao — were sitting by Mr. Rao’s side on the stage.
Mr. Rao, however, refused to divulge more details claiming that he was holding the Chief Minister’s post and any statement in this regard could give an opportunity to others to cast aspersions against him.
The development that took place a week ago created a flutter in the political circles with the TRS charging the BJP with trying to destabilise the party’s government in the State through horse trading. The episode came to light following a telephonic call between a Tirupati-based godman Simhayajulu and a Hyderabad-based businessman Ramachandra Bharati alias Satish Sharma. They were heard discussing how a couple of TRS MLAs had given consent to join the BJP and facilitating the same with the blessings of top BJP leadership, mainly general secretary in-charge of organisation B.L. Santosh. Some more TRS MLAs were also in touch to join the party.
A couple of days later a meeting was set up between Simhayajulu, Satish Sharma, another businessman Nanda Kumar and the four MLAs at the resort of Pilot Rohit Reddy at Aziznagar in Hyderabad. The meeting took place amid an alert already sent out to the police who picked up the trio. It was disclosed by audio and video arrangements already made at the resort that the MLAs were offered ₹100 crore each, Central government contracts and posts.
Initially, the police produced them in an Anti-Corruption Bureau court but the case was struck down as it was not maintainable. Then, the police moved the High Court which directed the ACB court to launch the proceedings. The BJP also filed a petition in the High Court seeking a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation or a special investigation team. The party alleged that a fabricated case was made out against it.
Mr. Rao told the Sunday meeting “some Delhi brokers tried to purchase the Telangana self-respect by offering allurements. But the four MLAs did not fall to the bait and ensured that Telangana’s self-respect cannot be purchased by brokers,” he said, appreciating the MLAs for not accepting offer.
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