Telangana ACB conducts searches in cash-for-vote case

The Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) of Telangana on Tuesday conducted searches at the residences of TDP MLA A. Revanth Reddy and two other accused in the cash-for-vote scam.

The sleuths of ACB searched the houses of Revanth Reddy, Sebastian Harry and Uday Simha at different places in Hyderabad.

Armed with a search warrant, 10 to 15 officials of the ACB searched Revanth Reddy's house in Jubliee Hills, one of his lawyers said.

The investigating agency checked documents relating to bank accounts, lands and passports. The lawyer said the officials found nothing relating to the case.

The searches were conducted before dawn, hours before the questioning of the accused on the fourth day.

Revanth Reddy, a member of the Telangana state legislative assembly, was arrested by the ACB on May 31 when he offered Rs.50 lakh to nominate MLA Elvis Stephenson to make him vote for TDP-BJP candidate in the elections to Telangana legislative council.

Revanth Reddy's aides were also arrested in the trap laid by ACB on a complaint by Stephenson.

The next day a city court had sent the three accused to judicial custody for two days. The court later granted ACB four day custody of the accused.

The agency is trying to elicit information from the accused about the source of Rs.50 lakh and also from where they planned to bring Rs.4.5 crore as part of the Rs.5 crore deal.

The agency is also questioning them with regard to the complicity of other political leaders in the scam.

The case took a dramatic turn on Sunday when an audio tape of an alleged telephonic conversation of Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu with Stephenson surfaced.

While the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) government in Telangana said the audio tape proved that Naidu is the mastermind of the scam, Telugu Desam Party (TDP) denied that the voice on tape is Naidu's voice.