The cash-for-vote case that was responsible for intense war of words between the chief ministers Andhra Pradesh and Telangana last is very much alive. After some lull, Telangana’s Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) on Saturday issued notice to one of the accused, Jerusalem Muthaiah.
Muthaiah is the fourth accused in the case registered by the ACB last year. He was absconding and had reportedly taken shelter in Andhra Pradesh.
Muthaiah was the man who lodged a complaint against Telangana chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao in Vijayawada stating that Rao’s followers had assaulted him and were forcing him to issue a statement implicating Andhra Pradesh chief minister in the cash-for-vote scam.
The ACB has asked him to make himself available at the ACB office within a week. The ACB served the notice on Muthaiah at his house in Uppal here, though he initially refused to accept it on the ground that he has nothing to do with the case. He also cited a high court accepting his quash petition.
For the benefit of late comers, the sensational case,known cahs-for -vote case, had come to light in May last year when TDP MLA Revanth Reddy was arrested by the ACB while he was offering Rs.50 lakh to an Anglo-Indian MLA. ACB conducted a sting to catch Reventh redhanded. The money was offered to nominated MLA Elvis Stephenson reportedly to induce him to vote for TDP candidate Narender Reddy in the elections to Telangana legislative council.
It was later said that the ACB laid a trap on the complaint given Stephenson.The case led to the arrest of another legislator Sandra Venkata Veeraiah and two aides of Revanth Reddy.
The case had snowballed into a murky conflict between the two states following the leakage of an audio which contained Naidu’s conversation purportedly with Stephenson.
TRS accused Naidu of plotting to topple the government while TDP alleged that the TRS government illegally tapped the telephones of the Andhra chief minister Naidu and his cabinet colleagues in Hyderabad. The talk that Telangana government was planning to include Naidu as accused strained the relations between the two chief ministers. They even stopped attending the High Tea hosted Governor, who incidentally a common government for the two states, to avoid a possible meeting. The tension remained till Naidu and Rao met on the day of foundation stone laying ceremony for Amaravati on October 2, 2015 in which Prime Minister Modi was the chief guest.
