Telangana MLAs poaching: Top BJP leader BL Santhosh summoned

Hyderabad, Nov 18: The Special Investigation team (SIT) on Friday summoned BJP national general secretary (organisation) B L Santosh in connection with the Bharat Rashtra Samiti's (BRS) MLA poaching case. According to the summons, BL Santhosh has to appear on November 21 or he will be arrested.

The TRS government on November 9 ordered setting up a seven- member special investigation team (SIT) to probe into the case relating to alleged poaching of the ruling party MLAs.

The case of poaching was filed based on a complaint from Pilot Rohith Reddy, one of the MLAs approached by the trio. Relevant sections of IPC and provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 were invoked against Ramachandra Bharati alias Satish Sharma, Nanda Kumar and Simhayaji Swamy on October 26.

As per a copy of the FIR, Rohith Reddy alleged the accused offered him Rs 100 crore and in return the legislator has to leave the TRS and contest as a BJP candidate in the next Assembly elections.

The members of the SIT include Rema Rajeshwari-SP Nalgonda, Kalmeshwar Shingenawar-DCP Crimes, Cyberabad, and R Jagadishwar Reddy- DCP, Shamshabad.

Recemtly, in an unexpected press conference, Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao played a video allegedly concerning the episode in which three persons were arrested. While speaking about dethroning non-BJP governments, they took the names of top leaders, Rao said.

"They openly say in the video we already dethroned eight (state) governments. And how they conducted the operation. Now we (the men) are in the process of dethroning four governments, i.e Telangana, Delhi, Andhra Pradesh and Rajasthan," Rao was quoted saying by PTI.

The Arvind Kejriwal-led AAP heads the Delhi government while YSRCP is in the ruling saddle in neighbouring Andhra Pradesh.

Rao further said he will send all the evidence he got in the "TRS MLAs poaching case" to the Chief Justice of India, CJs of all High Courts, media houses, CBI and ED for their knowledge.

The BJP leadership in Telangana vehemently denied having any knowledge of the alleged poaching of TRS MLAs by their party.

The saffron party claimed that it was a drama "scripted, directed and produced" by the Chief Minister.

with PTI inputs