Telangana HC allows police investigation into TRS MLAs poaching case

Hyderabad: The Telangana High Court on Tuesday allowed the police to proceed with the probe into the 'TRS MLAs poaching case'. The court had earlier deferred the investigation. The three accused in the case have been remanded to judicial custody late last month after the HC had directed that they surrender before police. Meanwhile, the Banjara Hills police here registered a case against one of the accused in the 'TRS MLAs poaching case' on charges of forgery of documents like PAN card following a complaint made by MLA Pilot Rohith Reddy, police said on Tuesday.

In the 'TRS MLAs poaching case', based on a complaint by Pilot Rohith Reddy, cases under relevant sections - criminal conspiracy, offering bribe and provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 - were filed against the trio -- Ramachandra Bharati alias Satish Sharma, Nanda Kumar and Simhayaji Swamy -- on the night of October 26.

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

Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao (KCR) on Thursday called an unexpected news conference where he released a series of videos of alleged BJP people purportedly bribing four TRS MLAs. KCR said the videos back his party's claim that the BJP tried to bribe four TRS MLAs.

A row was triggered in Telangana last week, after four TRS MLAs Rega Kantha Rao, Guvvala Balaraju, Beeram Harshvardhan Reddy and Pilot Rohit Reddy said that the BJP tried to lure them to switch loyalties. KCR attacked PM Narendra Modi and Home minister Amit Shah alleging that the saffron party was trying to pull down the TRS government by luring its MLAs with offers of money and posts.