The Congress party has demanded that the Central Election Commission deploy Central forces in Dubbak bye-election to stop use of money power, bribery and corrupt practices by the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to create an atmosphere for free and fair elections.
In the backdrop of incidents related to seizure of cash reportedly from the BJP candidate Raghunanda Rao’s relatives and the accusations over TRS using the police to nail the opponents, the Congress wrote a letter to Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora to direct the officials to book cases against all those involved in the incident.
The letter signed by TPCC chief N. Uttam Kumar Reddy, CLP leader Bhatti Vikramarka and chairman of TPCC Election Commission Coordination Committee Marri Shashidhar Reddy said that the seizure of ₹18.67 lakh allegedly from Raghunandan Rao’s relatives and Union Minister of State for Home G. Kishan Reddy rushing to hush-up things confirmed the distribution of money.
Earlier on October 15 too an amount of ₹ 40 lakhs was seized from four persons, Similarly, the Congress had brought to the notice of the Election Commission on October 22 about the offer of bribe made by Finance Minister T Harish Rao to a Congress party mandal president Laxman Goud to join the ruling TRS party, the letter said.
The Congress leaders alleged that the TRS party would resort to influence the voters with the the use of money and liquor and that the local police would not be in a position to check their movement as they are totally under the influence of the State government and are under threat by the TRS leadership.
The Congress recalled that in the past large sums of money were seized during the RK Puram Assembly bye-election in December 2017 and the Vellore Lok Sabha election in April 2019 in Tamil Nadu. In both those instances EC had cancelled the elections. At least the EC can deploy Central forces and direct officials to be fair, the letter said.
