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Telangana elections: Issue of bid to poach BRS MLAs on back-burner in poll season
Even now, when the campaign for the Telangana assembly elections is reaching a feverish pitch, there is a stunning silence from the BRS and the BJP on the MLAs’ poaching issue
As the political atmosphere in Telangana is heating up ahead of the November 30 state assembly elections, a major political issue – an alleged attempt by the Bharatiya Janata Party to poach four Bharat Rashtra Samithi MLAs – that rocked the state exactly a year ago, has been given a quiet burial.
A sting operation conducted by the Cyberabad police on a farmhouse on the outskirts of Hyderabad on October 26, 2022, led to the arrest of three persons for allegedly trying to lure four BRS legislators into the BJP.
The issue triggered a major political uproar in Telangana and fetched a huge mileage to the BRS in the by-election to Munugode assembly seat held a week later – on November 3, as BRS president and chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao accused the BJP top leadership of trying to destabilise his government.
The seat had fallen vacant due to the resignation of sitting MLA Komatireddy Rajagopal Reddy, who resigned from the Congress and contested the bypoll on the BJP ticket. The BRS won the seat with a comfortable margin of nearly 10,000 votes. Reddy has now quit the BJP and is all set to be back in the Congress.
For the next four months, the alleged attempt by the BJP to poach the four BRS MLAs – Guvvala Balaraju (Atchampet - SC), B Harshavardhan Reddy (Kollapur), Rega Kantha Rao (Pinapaka-ST) and Pilot Rohith Reddy (Tandur) – had hit the headlines regularly, as the case went from the local sessions court to the state high court and from there to the Supreme Court.
On March 17 this year, the Supreme Court asked the Telangana police not to continue with its probe into the case till it decides on the state high court’s order of December 26, 2022, transferring the case from the state police to the Central Bureau of Investigation. The apex court also asked the CBI not to take up the investigation until further orders.
As the case is still pending in the Supreme Court, there has been no further development in the case. The BRS, which made a hue and cry across the state and even took it up at the national level, conveniently ignored the case. So did the BJP, which was going hammer and tongs at the BRS for enacting a high political drama.
Even now, when the campaign for the Telangana assembly elections is reaching a feverish pitch, there is a stunning silence from the BRS and the BJP on the MLAs’ poaching issue.
“What is there to talk about now? The issue is sub judice. In any case, we managed to expose before the public the dirty attempts of the BJP to destabilise the democratically elected government of the BRS,” BRS spokesperson Dasoju Sravan said.
Telangana BJP spokesperson N V Subhash, too, sought to underplay the episode. “There is no way the KCR government could go further in the case, as it was just a high drama to malign the BJP. It knows that it cannot prove anything against the BJP as it was stage-managed to garner some cheap publicity. Hence, it is silent,” Subhash said.
Political analyst Sriram Karri, however, said there is a general perception among the people that the BRS and the BJP might have come to an understanding with each other. “The BRS seems to have conveniently ignored the poaching episode to embarrass the BJP, after the BJP government at the Centre is believed to have gone soft on KCR’s daughter Kavitha in Delhi liquor scam case,” he said.
Karri observed that in the last one year, the BJP has become weaker in Telangana and hence, is no more a threat for the BRS. “That is why, the BRS is not raising any poaching issue and focussing on attacking the Congress which is its prime enemy. Now, the people don’t even recall either the political circumstances or the factual finer points of the poaching episode,” he said.
The case
On the night of October 26, acting on a tip off by Tandur MLA Pilot Rohit Reddy, a team of Cyberabad police raided a farmhouse at Moinabad, which belonged to the MLAs and arrested three persons - Ramachandra Bharati alias Satish Sharma, a priest from Faridabad in Haryana, Simhayaji, pontiff of Srimanatha Raja Peetham in Tirupati and Nandakumar, owner of a restaurant in Hyderabad, who assembled there to meet the four BRS MLAs.
The police arranged secret cameras and audio equipment to record the conversation between the trio and the MLAs. Cyberabad police commissioner Stephen Ravindra told reporters later that the three persons were trying to entice the legislators with money, and contracts among other things to switch loyalties to the BJP. They were arrested from
On a complaint lodged by Rohit Reddy, the police registered a First Information Report (FIR) at Moinabad police station under Section 120-B (criminal conspiracy), 171-B r/w 171-E 506 r/w 34 (offering bribe for electoral gains) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and Section 8 of Prevention of Corruption Act-1988.
The three accused were produced before the local ACB court on October 27, but were let out on bail on the ground that they were not given notices under Section 41-A of the Criminal Procedure Code. However, they were arrested again a day later a high court order. They were later sent to the Chanchalguda central prison in Hyderabad. All the three accused were later released on bail by the high court on February 12, 2023.
On November 3, hours after the polling for the by-election to Munugode assembly seat ended, KCR addressed a crowded press conference and made wild allegations against the BJP central leadership saying that it was trying to pull down his government by poaching his party MLAs.
He released video clippings and audio tapes of what is called the “Operation Farmhouse,” to show how the accused had claimed to have close links with top BJP leaders including Union home minister Amit Shah and had been entrusted with the task of poaching the BRS MLAs.
The tapes, whose authenticity HT could not vouch for, purportedly showed the accused offering huge money, prominent posts in the party and central government contracts to the four BRS MLAs.
On November 9, the KCR government constituted a seven-member special investigation team (SIT) headed by then Hyderabad police commissioner C V Anand, to do a comprehensive investigation.
During the course of investigation, the SIT found that the three accused were in touch with BJP national general secretary (organisation) B L Santosh, Bharat Dharma Jana Sena (BDJS) founder Tushar Vellapally, Dr Jaggu Swamy of Amritha Institute in Kerala and a senior lawyer B Srinvas from Karimnagar.
On November 16, the SIT issued notices to these four people to appear before the investigating officer on November 21 for questioning. Except Srinivas, the other three did not turn up.
Santosh challenged the notices in the Telangana high court on November 23. Though initially it rejected his plea, it later granted a stay on the notices, on the ground that the SIT did not mention the reasons for questioning in the notice.
On December 26, acting on a petition filed by Telangana BJP general secretary G Premender Reddy and after prolonged hearing, the high court transferred the probe into the alleged poaching case to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). The high court also dissolved the state government-appointed Special Investigation Team (SIT) which was probing the case.
On February 2, 2023, the Telangana government moved the Supreme Court challenging the state high court’s order transferring the investigation to the CBI. The state government argued that since the CBI is in the hands of the central government, it might not investigate the case impartially.
On March 13, the Supreme Court asked the CBI to put on hold its investigation into the case of alleged poaching of the four BRS MLAs. Four days later, it asked the state police also not to continue further investigation.
