A Revanth Reddy seeks cancellation of Patnam Narender Reddy's win

Hyderabad: Telangana state Congress working president A. Revanth Reddy on Thursday moved a petition before the Telangana High Court, seeking to set aside TRS leader Patnam Narender Reddy’s election as MLA from Kodangal. Instead, he wanted the court to declare himself as the elected candidate.
In the Assembly elections, Mr Patnam had polled the highest of 80,754 votes and Mr Revanth 71,435 votes.

In his petition, Mr Revanth alleged that Mr Patnam violated the model code of conduct during the campaign. He requested the court to disqualify and punish Mr Patnam under 171-E, 171-F, read with Section 11 A of the Representation of People Act, 1951, and further register cases under Indian Penal Code.

Mr Revanth said over Rs 17.50 crore was seized from Mr Patnam’s temporary house during the elections. He said his opponent spent crores of rupees to coax Independ-ent candidates into withdrawing their nominations. He also alleged that over Rs 70 lakh was paid to two superintendents of police and lakhs of rupees to several other police officials in Vikarabad and Mahbubnagar districts, who in turn worked in his favour.

Mr Revanth also remarked that the print and electronic media, namely Namaste Telangana newspaper and T-news channel, carried various articles and programmes depicting him in poor light. He said had the caretaker government used its money, muscle, media and official power to bring him down in the recently concluded polls, he would have won with a thumping majority.