HYDERABAD: The BJP on Saturday said the election of ‘Pilot’ Rohit Reddy, the BRS MLA from Tandur, must be declared invalid as he lied in his affidavit submitted to the Election Commission. BJP MLA from Dubbak M. Raghunandan Rao, addressing a press conference, said there was a lot for Rohit Reddy to
answer despite the BRS MLA’s attempts to gloss over the summons he received
from the Enforcement Directorate in connection with the Bengaluru drugs
case.
Raghunandan Rao, who followed up his press meet with a written complaint to
the Central Election Commission, sought Rohit Reddy’s disqualification as an MLA and that his win in the 2018 election be declared as invalid on account of discrepancies in his affidavits files in the 2009 and 2018 elections. “In his 2009 affidavit, Rohit Reddy claimed he held a BTech (MS) degree from BTH University in Sweden, and in his 2018 affidavit, he said he passed Intermediate in 2001 and earned a commercial pilot’s licence from the USA in 2008,” Raghunandan Rao said.
“Typically, people complete their engineering degrees after completing
intermediate. These are serious discrepancies and his is a fit case for
invalidating his election win in 2018,” Raghunandan Rao said.
He said he would not like to dwell at length on Rohit Reddy’s history and
actions as the ED was probing him but the certainty was that the ED would
not have issued meaningless simple-minded summons as the BRS MLA has been trying to project.
“There are questions that Rohit Reddy, as well as Chief Minister K.
Chandrashekar Rao need to answer. Our accusation is that Rohit Reddy, who
was the complainant in the MLAs poachgate case, knew two of the accused,
Nandu and Simhayaji for years. KCR said there was phone call data from 2015
onwards, so we are asking the IT Minister and the Chief Minister as to how
long these two were in touch with Rohit Reddy. Will the CM reveal this or
should we?” Raghunandan Rao asked.
He also said that the farm house in Moinabad that was the site for the
poachgate case and owned by Rohit Reddy, was built on land assigned to
Dalits. “Is this true or not? Whose name is on the land records? What is its
survey number? Will Rohit Reddy reveal this information, or should we?” the
BJP MLA asked.
“There are three others — Sandeep Reddy, Kaladhar Reddy, and Ratan Reddy — who have been named in the Bengaluru drugs case, and it is for Rohit Reddy
to say whether he has any contacts, or relations with them. Then there is a
farm house-cum-resort in Sarfanpally which is frequented by people from the
film industry. Who owns this place which is again built on land assigned to Dalits? And to keep track of goings on here, will the Cyberabad police commissioner install cameras there as was done at the Moinabad farm house?” Raghunandan Rao asked.
The BJP MLA also took aim at Rohit Reddy’s visit to the Bhagyalakshmi Temple
at Charminar on Saturday saying all the BRS MLA had to do was to take an oath there that he never took drugs, and that he will never do so in the future. “And since when have BRS leaders started taking oaths and challenge others to do the same at a temple? When our state president Bandi Sanjay Kumar took an oath at Yadadri, KTR said the temple required a ritual cleansing. So will the Bhagyalakshmi Temple not need one now?” he said.
Bandi Sanjay only asked that the probe into the Bengaluru drugs case be sped up and did not say anything about ED issuing summons as is being claimed by BRS leaders. The ED has done its homework on the aspects we just spoke about and more and that is the reason why it asked Rohit Reddy to appear for questioning,” Raghunadan Rao said.
