HYDERABAD: High drama over the alleged attempt to poach four TRS legislators continued for the third day even as Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao remained silent on the controversy on Friday.
In a series of events during the day, state BJP president Bandi Sanjay Kumar went to the Yadadri Sri Lakshmi Narasimha Swamy temple and said under oath that the BJP leadership neither in the state nor at the Centre was involved in the poaching episode.
Though he dared the Chief Minister to state under oath that he did not orchestrate the poaching episode, the TRS has ignored his challenge. Instead, the ruling camp leaked two audio tapes to the electronic media, purportedly containing the conversation of the three accused in the bribery case between themselves and with with Tandur MLA ‘Pilot’ Rohit Reddy.
The political atmosphere is simmering ahead of the Munugode Assembly constituency bypoll on November 3, by winning which the BJP and the TRS want to have the shouting rights in the run-up to the state elections in 2023. The poaching episode, which broke on Wednesday, has diverted attention from the bypoll. The TRS has withdrawn its star campaigners K.T. Rama Rao, party working president and minister, and CM’s nephew and popular minister T. Harish Rao.
“Whatever the CM pulled off (recording of the ‘poaching’ at the farmhouse) is to achieve the short-term goal of winning Munugode. But, this will also help in establishing himself as a daring politician to take on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and expose the BJP’s unethical practices, particularly in view of his foray into national politics,” a senior TRS leader said.
The BJP also made quick moves, one being the invoking of religious sentiment by Sanjay and the other rushing to the judiciary to seek a probe by a sitting High Court judge into the episode. The BJP also complained to the Enforcement Directorate, asking it to unearth the cash that was rumoured to have been seized at the guest house.
The Congress, which has lost its space and the narrative, blamed both the TRS and the BJP for what they called vulgar display of unethical practices. The Bharat Jodo Yatra of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, which is passing through the the state, has been overshadowed by the developments.
It all started with three persons – Ramachandra Bharati, Simhayaji Swami and Nanda Kumar – meeting the TRS legislators G. Bala Raju, Pilot Rohit Reddy, Rega Kantha Rao and B. Harshavardhan Reddy at a farmhouse on the city outskirts on Wednesday.
Teams led by Cyberabad police commissioner Stephen Ravindra raided the farmhouse in the evening and later informed the media that they had thwarted a conspiracy jatched by the BJP-backed trio to lure the legislators to shift their loyalties.
Rumours were spread that a huge amount of money, some vernacular news channels even put it at `15 crore, was seized at the guest house but the police on Thursday informed the Anti Corruption Bureau special court that no cash was seized following which the magistrate turned down the petition for remand for the accused and let them free.
Meanwhile, the Telangana High Court, which had two cases pertaining to the poaching attempt, adjourned both to Saturday. While the Cyberabad police challenged the ACB special court’s decision to let the accused free due to lack of proper evidence, the BJP sought a probe by sitting HC judge into the poaching allegations.
