After self-imposed hibernation for over a month, former MLA and Telangan Pradesh Congress Committee working president A Revanth Reddy came out in the open to challenge the election of his Telangana Rashtra Samithi rival in Kodangal P Narender Reddy in the recent assembly elections.
Revanth who lost by a margin of over 10,000 votes filed a petition in the Telangana high court alleging that Narender Reddy indulged in gross electoral malpractices in Kodangal in the recent assembly elections.
He pointed out that Narender Reddy, in his expenditure statement submitted to the Election Commission, declared an expenditure of Rs 19 lakh in the elections.
“This is highly underplayed figure. A few days before the day of polling, the police under the directions of EC conducted a raid on his farmhouse at Kosgi and confiscated a diary, in which he had mentioned that he had incurred an expenditure of Rs 6.50 crore in the elections, till that date,” Revanth said.
The EC authorities also seized a cash of Rs 51 lakh from Narender Reddy and it was disclosed to the media by Chief Electoral Officer Rajat Kumar.
The IT department also submitted a report to the Election Commission of India to this effect, he said.
The PCC working president also complained to the high court that Narender Reddy owned a petrol bunk at Shahabad village but he had not mentioned the same in the election affidavit.
“According to EC rules, a person owning a petrol bunk is ineligible to contest the elections. He also declared that he had received Rs 5 lakh from the US towards election expenditure. But anybody who receives foreign funding is ineligible to contest the polls,” he said in the petition.
Similar petitions were filed by AICC spokesman Dasoju Sravan and former minister D K Aruna who pointed out several irregularities in the counting of votes in their constituencies Khairatabad and Gadwal respectively.
They alleged that there is a huge difference between the number of votes polled and number of votes counted, which clearly indicated that there was a manipulation of EVMs in the last moment.