Hyderabad: Social activists are crying foul over easy acquittals for BRS leaders in criminal cases, claiming that while as many as 97 candidates had criminal records while filing nominations in 2018, as per their election affidavits, a majority of them now have clean slates.
This includes party supremo K. Chandrashekar Rao and working president K.T. Rama Rao.
Activists alleged shoddy investigation by police for a failure in prosecuting the public representatives, as a majority of the cases pertained to violation of the election code.
The special court for trials against MPs and MLAs at Nampally, while pronouncing the final verdicts, has pointed to several lapses in the investigation and how the prosecution failed to prove the evidence. Surprisingly, the government did not challenge any of the acquittals in higher courts.
M. Padmanabha Reddy, the secretary for Forum for Good Governance (FGG), said that police claim to investigate several cases resulting in the conviction of the accused, but surprisingly, in all the cases registered against MLAs and MPs, they have failed to produce foolproof evidence.
“When the postings of police officers are done at the wish of politicians, how can they produce evidence against them? This is nothing but a ‘quid pro quo arrangement’,” he said.
Discussing the BRS candidates list, Padmanabha Reddy said they have been appealing to the parties not to field candidates with criminal antecedents. “But parties prefer the financial capacity and local influence of candidates. We urge at least other parties to verify criminal antecedents before announcing the candidates,” he said.
