Telangana: Three People Arrested for Attempt to Poach TRS MLAs

Telangana police have detained three people from a farmhouse in Hyderabad for allegedly attempting to poach the MLAs of the ruling party in the state. As per news reports, four MLAs of the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) were the targets of the attempt; the MLAs, on their part, tipped off the police.

A report by NDTV notes that "the deals could be to the tune of Rs 100 crore or more. In this case, they had offered Rs 100 crore to the key person, plus Rs 50 crore for each MLA."

The police raided the farmhouse in Aziz Nagar on October 26 after being informed by the MLAs that they were being "lured and bribed to change parties." Additionally, the MLAs allege that they were offered contracts, party posts, and big money to leave TRS.

As per the police, the detained people have identified themselves as "Satiesh Sharma, alias Ram Chandra Bharati, a priest from Haryana's Faridabad, D Simhayaji, a seer from Tirupathi, and a businessman, Nandakumar."

MLA from Tandur constituency, Rohit Reddy, at whose farmhouse the alleged deal was said to have taken place, has been marked in the police report as a complainant.

There have been allegations since 2019 that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is going to launch "Operation Lotus" in the state. The fresh allegations come after BJP managed to topple the Uddhav Thackray government in Maharashtra earlier this year. Aam Aadmi Party had also alleged that BJP was trying to poach its MLAs in Delhi and Punjab.

Responding to the event, Telangana BJP leaders said that Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao and TRS are fabricating the entire thing to distract attention from the upcoming by-poll in the state.