TRS ‘bribery’ claim: BJP says need 50-odd MLAs, what will we do with 4

Union Minister G Kishan Reddy said, “Do we need to indulge in such acts? We are confident BJP will come to power in Telangana in 2023. We do not have to indulge in horse-trading. All this is propaganda of a losing TRS. By getting a few TRS MLAs on our side we cannot topple the KCR government, so why will BJP try it? There is no logic in all this.”

The three men were arrested on Wednesday night from TRS MLA from Tandur P Rohith Reddy’s farmhouse in Moinabad. Police said Reddy had approached them with a complaint that a few men allegedly linked to BJP had tried to bribe him and MLAs G Balraj, Harvardhan Reddy and R Kantha Rao, to lure them into joining the saffron party. The plan was to topple the TRS government of K Chandrashekar Reddy, according to Rohith Reddy.

State Labour and Employment Minister C Malla Reddy said: “There are no Eknath Shindes in TRS. The BJP’s efforts to buy our MLAs failed because we are not for sale.”

In Maharashtra, Shinde split the Shiv Sena to form a government in alliance with BJP.

BJP national general secretary Tarun Chugh, who is also BJP’s Telangana in-charge, however, accused TRS of planting fake stories’ to malign BJP and divert public attention from the core issues for Munugode by-election on November 3. “Telangana Police alleges BJP representatives were trying to buy MLAs. Can they say who in BJP authorised it? Where is the money seized? Who are these middlemen,” he asked.

Scoffing at TRS’s claim, BJP leader P Vishnuvardhan Reddy wondered how his party could bring down the KCR government with four MLAs. “There is no logic in these accusations. We have only three MLAs in Telangana. We need at least half the 100-odd ruling party legislators to bring down the government.”

The BJP has filed a writ petition in High Court seeking a SIT probe into the case.

Telangana Congress leader Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka, meanwhile, said it TRS had started the “culture of buying MLAs” in the state and BJP is taking it forward. “The TRS purchased several of our MLAs. The BJP is doing the same thing,” he said.

Of the four TRS MLAs allegedly offered bribes, three — Rohith Reddy, Rega Kantha Rao and B Harshvardhan Reddy — incidentally were elected on Congress ticket in December 2018 Assembly polls. In June 2019, they joined TRS along with nine other Congress MLAs. The fourth MLA, Guvvala Balaraju, was elected on a TRS ticket from Achampet.

The three men arrested on Wednesday are Ramachandra Bharati, alias Satish Sharma, from Delhi; Nanda Kumar, from Hyderabad; and Simhayaji Swami of Tirupati.

Rohith Reddy claimed that Bharati and Kumar, who are allegedly associated with the BJP, first approached him on September 26 and tried to bribe him to join the BJP with an offer of Rs 100 crore, government contracts and other benefits. As per the FIR filed by the BRS MLA, the two told him that if he did not join the BJP, he would face criminal cases and raids by the Enforcement Directorate and CBI, while the Telangana government would be brought down.

As per Rohith Reddy, he did not entertain them then, but on Wednesday, they again contacted him and said they were coming to his farmhouse for negotiations and asked him to mobilise other TRS MLAs, offering now Rs 50 crore each to join the BJP. They allegedly also asked the TRS MLAs to discharge their public duties “improperly and dishonestly” so as to “destabilise” the KCR government.

The FIR states that based on the complaint, a case was registered under IPC Sections 120-B, 171 B read with 171-E, 506 read with 34, and Section 8 of the Prevention of Corruption Act.

Rohith Reddy incidentally was first with Chiranjeevi’s Praja Rajyam Party and then joined the TRS when Telangana was formed. Denied a ticket for polls, he was involved in several tussles, eventually leading to his expulsion. He then joined the Congress. Since returning to the TRS, he has been in a public war of words with old nemesis Mahender Reddy, with the two often accusing each other of corruption.

There has been talk lately that the TRS might not renominate Rohith Reddy from Tundur for the coming Assembly elections and choose Mahender Reddy, who has won from the seat earlier. As per TRS sources, with his role in Wednesday’s high drama, Rohith Reddy might have made his position stronger. BJP leaders claimed that after the police raid at his farmhouse, Reddy drove straight to Pragathi Bhavan to meet CM KCR.