Hyderabad: Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) political affairs committee convener Mohammed Ali Shabbir on Sunday demanded that the Telangana government order a Special Investigation Team (SIT) probe into the poaching of 61 Opposition MLAs and MLCs over the course of the previous eight years while it was in power, just as it had initiated a SIT investigation into the poaching of its four MLAs by allegedly by BJP agents.
During a press conference at Gandhi Bhavan, Shabbir Ali, a former Congress minister, said that three out of the four MLAs that the BJP agents tried to buy were originally members of the Congress. He asked how the alleged poaching of TRS MLAs would affect the lives of the people.
"KCR engineered 47 defections during his first tenure as CM and 14 defections in his second term. A total of four MPs, 25 MLAs and 18 MLCs from Congress and other parties were forced to defect to TRS from between 2014 and 2018. Twelve Congress and two TD MLAs defected to the TRS after 2018. Why did KCR not discuss ethics, morals, and fall of democratic values when engineering these defections,” he asked.
Shabbir Ali asserted that the BJP and the TRS had fabricated the Moinabad farmhouse drama for more than 15 days and that the CM created the liquor fraud to draw attention to his daughter, TRS MLC Kavitha.
"Kavitha is being used as a political pawn by the BJP and TRS since her name will garner greater media attention. Kavitha is accused of corruption in the Delhi liquor scam. If the Central investigating agencies have adequate evidence, they should detain Kavitha. If she is not involved, she should demonstrate her innocence in court. The controversy is nothing but a publicity gimmick of both the TRS and BJP.”
He accused BJP general secretary B.L. Santosh of being involved in the poachgate scandal and questioned why, if not, he was afraid of the SIT investigation. “If Santosh has no involvement in the poachgate scandal, he should appear before the SIT. The allegations that he is involved are only strengthened by his attempts to elude the investigation,” the Congress leader said.
