HYDERABAD: After moving the Telangana High Court, seeking a direction to transfer the ‘poachgate’ case to the CBI or set up an inquiry commission by a sitting judge, the Telangana BJP now fears for the lives of the four TRS MLAs who were allegedly sought to be lured. It wants the court to take suo moto cognizance of the issue and provide protection to the MLAs.
State BJP president Bandi Sanjay Kumar, who challenged Chief Minister K.Chandrasekhar Rao to swear on oath at the feet of Yadadri Lakshmi Narasimha Swamy that he did not script the TRS MLAs poaching controversy, expressed concern about the well-being and welfare of the four TRS MLAs only to save his daughter and son.
“KCR is capable of doing anything to protect his daughter and son. The MLAs have not been seen in public since KCR addressed a campaign meeting in Munugode on October 30, after which they were whisked away in a helicopter by the Chief Minister,” Sanjay said at a press conference on Friday.
Sanjay stated that the CM would be held accountable if anything happened to the TRS MLAs, and said that their families must file petitions in the court for their safety. “They have been in Pragathi Bhavan since the case was made public on October 26. Only once they were seen in public. Why is the Chief Minister afraid of letting them go home,” Sanjay wondered.
The state BJP president also claimed that the poachgate saga was a desperate attempt by the CM to save his daughter from the Delhi liquor scam fallout, having been named as a suspect in the case. “KCR is depressed and concerned about what will happen to her. This is why he started the MLAs-being-bought-by-BJP drama. The CM is well aware that the CBI can come in at any time and question or even arrest his daughter. His GO prohibiting the CBI from entering Telangana is pointless because the case was filed in Delhi.”
On the Chief Minister’s press meet on Thursday where he drew on from an affidavit submitted by the government to the High Court, and showed video clips of the poachgate meeting of the TRS MLAs with purported BJP agents, Sanjay said, “The CM said this was a ‘second show’. It wasn’t. It was a comedy show.” Further, Sanjay showed different video clips, including one of TRS MLA Guvvala Balaraju at the farmhouse in Moinabad saying he did not know anything, and that he was just at a “friend’s farmhouse”.
Dismissing the CM’s talk of saving democracy, Sanjay remarked, “KCR claims the 37 MLAs, some of whom were made ministers, joined the TRS impressed by its development agenda. The truth is that they were purchased like cattle in a market. KCR says he will inform the entire country on this case. We too will inform the country about the Nayeem diaries case, the liquor scam, and the drugs cases,” he said. He claimed that the BJP had no connections with the person referred to as Tushar by the Chief Minister.
He claimed that the Chief Minister insulted Minister Koppula Easwar at a press conference by asking him not to sit next to him. “Koppula is a good friend, he was offered the deputy CM post but the plan was changed by KCR. And now, Koppula, the only Dalit in the state Cabinet, is not even allowed to sit next to the Chief Minister,” Sanjay said.
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