HYDERABAD: A few leaders of the Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) and their kin continue to embarrass party leadership with their involvement in criminal and other illegal activities. The party has been encountering such instances frequently for the past few months, damaging its image and reputation at a time when Assembly polls are nearing.
Incidents of alleged harassment and abetting suicides in Khammam and Kamareddy by TRS leaders recently and the latest incident of involvement of a TRS leader's son in the Jubilee Hills minor girl's gang rape case has not only invited public wrath but pushed the party into a defensive mode.
All these incidents created a huge public uproar with civil society organisations and Opposition parties the ruling TRS leaders and workers of becoming grossly arrogant and indulging in criminal and other illegal activities such as 'settlements' pertaining to land disputes, financial dealings etc.
There is a strong demand in party circles that the leadership should initiate stringent action against such leaders indulging in illegal activities instead of invoking 'name sake suspensions' from the party.
In January this year, party's Kothagudem MLA Vanama Venkateswara Rao's son Vanama Raghavendra Rao was arrested on charges of abetting suicide of a businessman, his wife and twin daughters. In a purported self-shot video that went viral on social media, the businessman accused the MLA's son of making disparaging remarks about his wife and driving him to take the extreme step.
Soon after, two such incidents were reported in April. A realtor and his mother ended their lives in Kamareddy in a hotel after posting a selfie video about the torture they faced from a local TRS leader.
In another incident in April, a young BJP activist committed suicide alleging harassment by TRS leader and transport minister Puvvada Ajay Kumar.
In another sensational case in February 2021, a lawyer couple was hacked to death in broad daylight on a busy highway near Peddapalli and family members of the victims alleged that local TRS leaders were behind the murder.
In May 2022, the Petbasheerabad police registered a case against a group of 10 persons including labour minister Ch Malla Reddy’s relative M. Srinivas Reddy, on charges of trespassing into a land at Gundlapochampally and attacking the guards on the land with sticks over a land dispute.
To douse public anger, the party leadership issued statements suspending such leaders from the party but there are complaints that those leaders continue to remain politically active in their constituencies and continue to hold sway.
A few TRS leaders went to the extent of attacking each other in public over land disputes, in a recent incident in Nizamabad. TRS MLA and TSRTC chairman Bajireddy Govardhan and the husband of TRS Nizamabad municipal corporation mayor Neethu Kiran resorted to attacks
claiming ownership on a land parcel.
In January 2017, the then forest minister Jogu Ramanna's son Jogu Premender was booked in a murder case after the victim's family complained that he ended his life unable to bear the harassment by Premender.
In February 2017, police booked cases against T. Rameshwar Goud, son of the then excise minister T. Padma Rao Goud and others for allegedly assaulting and threatening a local businessman in Secunderabad.
In November 2021, the Saifabad police booked a criminal case against Talasani Saikiran Yadav, son of minister Talasani Srinivas Yadav for causing injuries to a man with his vehicle due to rash driving.
