Hyderabad: Congress accuses TRS leaders of indulging in horse-trading

Hyderabad: The Congress party on Friday demanded that the Election Commission take stern action against TRS leaders, including ruling party's candidate K Kavitha, for their alleged involvement in horse-trading of MPTCs, ZPTCs, Municipal Councillors and Corporators, to win the MLC elections from Nizamabad Local Bodies.

"Ruling TRS is brazenly indulging in violation of Code of Conduct in the ongoing Nizamabad MLC Elections (Local Bodies) as the contesting candidate from TRS is Kavitha Kalvakuntla, daughter of Chief Minister of Telangana.

Therefore, they hatched a conspiracy to win these elections by hook or crook and hence resorted to illegal means of violating the code of conduct," MP A Revanth Reddy, former minister Mohammed Ali Shabbir, Congress candidate V Subhash Reddy and Ramareddy ZPTC N Mohan Reddy alleged in their complaint lodged with Chief Electoral Officer Shashank Goel.

Speaking to media persons later, Shabbir Ali said that TRS Ministers, especially Vemula Prashanth Reddy, Member of Parliament BB Patil, Whip G Govardhan and other MLAs from Nizamabad and Kamareddy districts have been openly violating the Model of Code of Conduct without fear from the election authorities.

"TRS leaders are indulging in horse trading of MPTCs, ZPTCs, Municipal Councillors and Corporators, belonging to all opposition parties.

Since TRS does not have sufficient numbers to win the elections, they are threatening or luring the elected representatives of other parties to join TRS to ensure Kavitha's victory," he said.

The CEO has assured that he would direct the Nizamabad District Collector, who is also the Returning Officer, to submit a report in this regard at the earliest and would act based on his finding.