Horse-trading gone wrong: Telangana police foil attempts to bribe 4 MLAs from KCR’s party, ahead of local by-poll
The Telangana Police on Wednesday claimed to have foiled an attempted bribery, designed to poach MLAs from Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS), formerly known as Telangana Rashtra Samithi — the party of CM K Chandrasekhar Rao.
Incidentally, BRS and the BJP are currently in a close contest for the Munugudu assembly constituency. Both parties have legislators in their ranks that have switch sides before — the Munugudu bypoll was made necessary following the defection of BRS MLA Komatireddy Raja Gopal to the BJP.
Acting on a tip-off, that three people were trying to lure BRS legislators with cash, cheques and contracts, the Cyberabad Police conducted a check at a farmhouse in Aziz Nagar late on Wednesday evening.
The targets were four MLAs of the Telangana Rashtra Samithi, who had tipped off the police, Hyderabad police chief Stephen Ravindra told the media. The police said the deals could be to the tune of Rs 100 crore or more.
According to police, the alleged bribery attempts targeted BRS MLAs Pilot Rohit Reddy, Rega Kantharao, Guvvala Balaraju, and Beeram Harshavardhan.
Raveendra told reporters that the TRS legislators provided information to them that the trio were trying to entice them with several offers.
“On information from Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) MLA’s, we raided a farm house and found cash at the place. Ramchandra Bharathi – priest at Faridabad and native of Delhi, Simhayaji – of Peethadipathi of Srimanatha Raju from Tirupathi, Nanda Kumar a BJP leader were holding some discussions here,” said Raveendra.
He went on to say that he had inspected the farm house where the raid took place. Replying to a question about the four members luring the TRS MLA’s to switch their loyalties by offering huge amounts and contracts to them.
“Investigation is going on, soon we will give more details. All angles are being probed. Legal action will be initiated,” said the Commissioner.
