The Telangana police on Wednesday claimed to have foiled a bid to poach four lawmakers of the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi and detained three persons. Cyberabad Police Commissioner Stephen Raveendra said the conspiracy was busted after the legislators gave information to the police that some persons have been trying to persuade them to leave the party.
Based on the tip-off, police raided a farm house in Ranga Reddy district and detained three persons. They have been identified as Rama Chandra Bharathi alias Satish Sharma, who is associated with a temple in Faridabad and residing in Delhi, Nanda Kumar of Hyderabad, and Simha from Tirupati.
Police said the accused were trying to lure the legislators—Achampet MLA Guvvala Balaraj, Tandur MLA Rohit Reddy, Kollapur MLA Harshavardhan Reddy and Pinapaka MLA Rega Kantha Rao—by offering them a huge amount of money, posts and other incentives to switch loyalties. All the four MLAs were present at the farm house when the raid was conducted.
"The deals could be to the tune of Rs 100 crore or more. In this case, they had offered Rs 100 crore plus Rs 50 crore," Raveendra told NDTV.
The incident has sparked off a war of words between the TRS and the BJP with the former accusing the saffron party of trying to poach its MLAs ahead of the Munugode bypoll.
"Those connected to the BJP have tried to poach our MLAs. They held their ground and lodged complaint against those who approached them. This is an attempt at horse-trading," TRS MLC Palla Rajeshwar told The Quint.
The BJP, however, dismissed the allegation and said this was a diversion created by the TRS to win the Munugode seat.
