BJP ‘agents’ arrested for trying to woo TRS MLAs ahead of Munugode bypoll

With just a week for the Munugode bypoll, the Telangana Police has on Wednesday night seized a large cash from a farmhouse in outskirts of Hyderabad that was “meant to be offered to four MLAs of the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) to quit their party by ‘BJP agents’”, officials said. During the raid, Delhi based Sateish Sharma, 33, alias Ramachandra Bharathi, a priest at a temple in Haryana’s Faridabad; D Simhayaji, a seer from Tirupathi in Andhra Pradesh; and Nandakumar, a Hyderabad-based businessman, were arrested from the farmhouse at Aziz Nagar in Moinabad.

According to reports, around Rs 15 crore cash was seized from a car at the farmhouse in Hyderabad and the accused ‘BJP agents’ were said to be in touch with TRS MLAs Pilot Rohith Reddy, B Harshvardhan Reddy, G Balraju, and Rega Kantha Rao.

Cyberabad Police Commissioner Stephen Ravindra said that police raided the farmhouse following a tip off from TRS MLAs who said that they were being lured to leave the TRS party led by Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao.

A bypoll is scheduled to be held at the Munugode assembly segment scheduled on November 3, after sitting MLA Komatireddy Rajagopal Reddy quit Congress and joined the BJP a few months ago. Reddy is now contesting from BJP against former MLA Kusukuntla Prabhakar Reddy of TRS and Palvai Sravanthi Reddy of Congress, explains The Indian Express.

Y Satish Reddy, a TRS party’s social media convenor, tweeted a video captioned “Amit Shah’s failed attempt in #Telangana, Caught red-handed bribing MLAs to switch party!” The party’s followers have started to trend “#TelanganaNotForSale” on Twitter.

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The BJP leaders have distanced themselves from the allegations of poaching attempt in Telangana. BJP leader and party’s national vice-president D K Aruna has called it “another drama” by TRS president and Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao. On Twitter, she has blamed Rao for “cheap politics” and said that no one is going to believe the “cinema-like” story ahead of the bypolls.