Elvis Stephenson gets hero’s welcome in House from TRS MLAs

Hyderabad: Nominated Anglo Indian MLA Elvis Stephenson got a hero’s reception from TRS MLAs when he arrived to cast his vote in the MLC polls in the Assembly on Monday.

The crest fallen Kodangal Telugu Desam MLA, A Revanth Reddy was hugged by TD MLAs and got their moral support.

In all 118 of the 120 MLAs cast their vote with CPI and CPM MLAs staying away from the polls. The total percentage of votes was 98.33 per cent.

While Speaker Madhusudhana Chary was the first to cast vote, Chief Minister, K. Chandrasekhar Rao, was the last to vote.

Elvis Stephenson, who arrived in the Assembly in the morning, was mobbed by ministers and TRS legislators shook hands and hugged him for sending Revanth Reddy to Chanchalguda jail for offering him Rs 50 lakh cash as part of the Rs 5 crore deal for voting.

Normally, the Anglo Indian nominated MLA is ignored by regular MLAs. But Stephenson, who lodged a complaint with the ACB against TD attempts to buy him and had Revanth and three others sent to jail, was the hero of the day. Following restrictions by the Election Commission, the media was kept at bay and no legislator was allowed to speak in the Assembly premises till voting was completed. Revanth arrived in the Assembly at around 9.20 am from Chanchalguda jail where he is kept on remand.
a 14-day judicial remand, to cast his vote.

He was received by Qutballapur MLA K. P. Vivekanand, Cantonment MLA, Sayanna, TD floor leader, E. Dayakar Rao, BJP MLA Chintala Ramachandra Reddy and others.

Revanth Reddy smiled and chatted with party MLAs for an hour before casting his vote. He was later taken away by police to jail.

Reddy who put up a brave front, smiled and waved to the media, reportedly narrated the sequence of events that led to his arrest, to party MLAs. He waited for sometime before casting his vote since once he voted he would have been taken away. Some cried foul for misusing the permission.