The Anti-Corruption Bureau in Telangana raided the residence of TDP legislator Revanth Reddy
The Anti-Corruption Bureau in Telangana today raided the residence of TDP lawmaker Revanth Reddy who was arrested after he was allegedly caught red-handed offering bribe to a fellow legislator to influence his vote in the state legislative council elections. The houses of two others, who were also arrested in connection with the case, were raided.
Here are the latest developments:
Mr Reddy was arrested on May 31 at the Secunderabad home of Elvis Stephenson, a nominated MLA, where ACB personnel were waiting for him when he arrived and was allegedly about to hand over Rs. 50 lakh in cash. The deal, the agency alleges, was for Rs. five crore.
Officials of the ACB conducted searches at Mr Reddy's house in the posh Jubilee Hills area in Hyderabad in a pre-dawn raid today. The houses of Uday Simha and Bishop Harry Sebastian, who allegedly acted as mediators in the bribery deal, were also searched.
A local court in Secunderabad will today take up the ACB's petition seeking custody of Mr Reddy for two more days; his custody ends today.
The ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) has accused TDP chief and Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu of playing a role in the alleged bribery attempt by Mr Reddy.
A TV channel in Telangana, TNews, aired an audio recording on Sunday of what it alleges is a conversation between Mr Naidu and Mr Stephenson. TNews is at least partly owned by the family of TRS chief and Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao.
In audio and video tapes released by the ACB, Revanth Reddy purportedly makes repeated references to his "boss". Mr Reddy allegedly also claims in the recordings that he was authorised to strike the bribe deal by "Babu Garu," which the TRS alleges is a reference to Mr Naidu.
Chandrababu Naidu's TDP says it's a conspiracy and that tapes aired by the TV channel have been doctored. Mr Naidu met Governor ESL Narasimhan on Sunday evening, before the audio tapes became public, and alleged that the TRS government of Telangana is illegally tapping his phones and those of his ministers.
"How dare you try to conspire against me? If you have an Anti-Corruption Bureau and police in Hyderabad, I also have my Anti-Corruption Bureau and police in Hyderabad... I warn you not to cause tensions between the people of the two states," Mr Naidu dared his Telangana counterpart KCR at a public meet in Guntur on Monday.
KCR's son and state minister KT Rama Rao dared Mr Naidu to face a lie-detector test. "Let Naidu take lie-detector test and prove to people that he is the squeaky clean person that he claims to be, that he is innocent," Mr Rao said.
Both the TDP and TRS accused each other of horse-trading for the legislative council elections held last Monday. The TRS won five of six seats and the Congress won one.
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