Police produce 'missing' poll contestant before court

A candidate from the Gajwel constituency, who had reportedly gone missing since filing his nomination papers on November 22 for the Telangana Assembly polls, was produced before the Hyderabad High Court Tuesday, a day after it had directed police to produce him.

A division bench comprising Justice Raghvendra Singh Chauhan and Justice M Satyanarayana Murthy had on Monday directed police to produce K Dinesh Chakravarthy, contesting on a Samajwadi Forward Block Party ticket, before the court by 2.15 pm on Tuesday.

Accordingly, police produced Dinesh. He informed the court that he had neither gone missing nor had anyone abducted him and added that he was safe.

The candidate further said he had voluntarily withdrawn his nomination papers and that his party was aware of it.

However, he added that there apparently was some communication gap over the matter.

After hearing him, the court closed the case.

The Samajwadi Forward Bloc party, represented by its national president L Muralidhar Rao, had filed a petition in the court, complaining that party candidate Dinesh's whereabouts were not known since the filing of nomination papers.

The constituency is represented by TRS leader and caretaker Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao.