Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao on Thursday released videos to back his party MLAs claims that the Bharatiya Janata Party was offering large amounts of money to them to switch sides ahead of the Munugode bye-poll.
Rao, or KCR as he is popularly called, at a press conference released purported video evidence and other material related to the conversation between three accused brokers in the case and the four MLAs whom they allegedly tried to poach at a farmhouse on the outskirts of Hyderabad on October 26.
In one of the videos, one accused named Ramachandra Bharati was heard offering Rs 50 crore each to the MLAs upon “delivery”, apparently suggesting that the BJP was trying to poach them.
The chief minister accused the BJP leadership of trying to topple the democratically-elected governments of Delhi, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and Rajasthan. “They openly say in the video we already dethroned eight [state] governments,” KCR said. “And how they conducted the operation.”
The Telangana Rashtra Samithi head urged the judiciary to protect the democracy in the country, adding that he will send the videos to Chief Justice of India UU Lalit, all Supreme Court judges, chief justices of all High Courts and chief ministers of other states to show them the conspiracy hatched by the BJP.
“Please for god’s sake, if democracy is gone everything is gone,” he told the judiciary. “People will lose confidence and the nation will be lost.”
At the press conference, KCR alleged the attempt to poach his party MLAs was an organised crime that had the “blessings” of Union Home Minister Amit Shah, BJP President JP Nadda as well as BJP General Secretary In-Charge of Organisation BL Santosh, The Hindu reported.
Moreover, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s name also cropped up during a couple of occasions when his MLAs were interacting with the accused men, he added.
“If such violent actions and political destruction are not stopped, if we do not stand firmly against them, if everyone does not play their respective roles, the nation’s status and dignity will be lost on a global level,” KCR warned.
The BJP, however, has denied the allegations of poaching, claiming that the audio clips were a part of “TRS drama”. Union minister G Kishan Reddy has demanded that the Central Bureau of Investigation or a sitting Supreme Court judge should look into the case.
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