In another twist in ‘MLAs poaching’ case, an audio of telephonic conversation between the main accused and a TRS MLA surfaced on Friday.

The Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) leaked the audio of purported conversation between Ramachandra Bharati, alias Satish Sharma alias Swamiji, and Pilot Rohit Reddy, the MLA who tipped-off the Cyberabad police about the attempt to buy him and three other MLAs resulting in the arrest of three alleged agents of BJP.

The names of BJP general secretary B. L. Santhosh and ‘Number two’ figured in the telephonic conversation about the deal to buy the MLAs.

The conversation, which was also joined by second accused Nanda Kumar alias Nandu, took place before the accused met four TRS MLAs at a farmhouse near Hyderabad on Wednesday.

During the conversation, Swamiji is heard telling Rohit Reddy that once the abulk’ is ready, ASantosh can come to Hyderabad to finalise it. Swamiji also informed Rohit that Santosh had gone to Ahmedabad with ‘Number two’.

“Can you share the names with number two,” asked Swamiji when Rohit Reddy was reluctant to share the names of other MLAs ready to switch loyalties.

Swamiji also assured the MLA that the Centre will give complete protection from the Centre. “It is our responsibility to take care of you. When you are under our scanner, you don’t have to worry, including from ED to the income tax. We have good experience in Bengal,” the MLA was told.

Ramachandra Bharati of Delhi, Nanda Kumar of Hyderabad and Simhayaji Swamy were arrested by the police during a raid on a farmhouse at Moinabad near Hyderabad on Wednesday night.

The accused said to be close to some top BJP leaders were trying to lure four MLAs of the TRS with offers huge sums of money, important positions and contracts.

In his complaint to police, Rohit Reddy alleged that they offered Rs 100 crore to him and Rs50 crore each to three other MLAs.

The incident triggered tremor in state politics ahead of the November 3 by-election to Munugode Assembly seat as the TRS claimed a conspiracy by BJP to topple its government had been foiled.

The saffron party, however, denied the allegations and claimed that Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao orchestrated a drama to tarnish its image for electoral gain in Munugode.

The police produced the accused before a judge at his residence on Thursday night with a petition to remand them to judicial custody.

The judge, however, rejected the police petition for sending the accused to judicial custody, citing lack of evidence. He observed that the Prevention of Corruption Act does not apply to the case as there is no evidence of bribe money.

The judge told police to issue notices to the accused under Section 41 of Criminal Procedure Code for questioning.

On the judge’s orders, police released all the three accused. They were subsequently issued notices directing them to appear before police within 24 hours. The police also moved the Telangana High Court challenging the order of the lower court.

Cyberabad police have registered a case against three men arrested from a farmhouse near Hyderabad while trying to lure four MLAs of the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) with offers of huge sums of cash, important positions and contracts.

The arrests were made on Wednesday.

On a complaint by one of the MLAs Pilot Rohit Reddy, police registered an FIR against Ramachandra Bharati alias Satish Sharma of Delhi, Nanda Kumar of Hyderabad and Simhayaji Swamy of Tirupati.

The case has been registered under the Indian Penal Code (IPC) sections 120 B (criminal conspiracy), 171-B (bribery) read with 171-E (punishment of bribery), 506 (punishment for criminal intimidation) read with 34 (acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intention) and section 8 of Prevention of Corruption Act.

According to the complainant, Ramachandra Bharati and Nanda Kumar belonging to the BJP met him and negotiated with him not to contest as candidate from the TRS and to join BJP by resigning from the TRS and to contest in the next elections from the BJP for which they offered him an amount of Rs 100 crore. They also offered to give central government civil contract works and other high central government positions for monetary benefits and lured him to join the BJP.

The MLA told police that they stated that if he does not join the BJP, there will be criminal cases and raids by ED/CBI and the Telangana government led by TRS will be toppled by them. Since the inducement of bribe of a political party is unethical, undemocratic and encourages corruption and polluting the politics, he decided not to entertain such unethical practice by the above persons, says the FIR.

On October 26, the two accused again contacted Rohit Reddy and informed him that they are coming to his farm house at Aziz Nagar, Moinabad in the afternoon for negotiations. They also asked him to mobilise some other TRS MLAs for offering them bribes of Rs 50 crore each to join the BJP. They also further induced him and other MLAs to receive amounts and to discharge their public duties improperly and dishonestly so that the TRS government is destabilised. They informed that three persons — Ramachandra Bharati, Nanda Kumar and Simhayaji Swamy — would come to the farmhouse to finalise the deal of joining the BJP by resigning from the TRS.

On a tip-off by Rohit Reddy, Cyberabad police reached the farmhouse and arrested the three accused.

The trio were being questioned by the police at an undisclosed location. They will be produced in a court later in the day.

The poaching drama that unfolded in Hyderabad on Wednesday night has triggered a slugfest between the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

After three persons, including two godmen, were detained from a farmhouse near Hyderabad while trying to lure four MLAs of TRS with offers of huge sums of cash, important positions and contracts, the TRS accused BJP of trying to destabilise the state government and called it an attack on self-respect of Telangana.

As word spread about a police raid on the farm house and those detained being close to the BJP leaders, TRS leaders, including ministers took to streets in different parts of the state to stage a protest against the saffron party. They staged a road blockade and raised slogans against Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Those detained at the farmhouse are Ramachandra Bharati alias S. Satish Sharma from Delhi and Simhayajulu from Tirupati, both godmen and Nanda Kumar, a businessman from Hyderabad said to be close to a Union minister.

The TRS leaders alleged that the BJP was trying to topple the government in Telangana just as it did in Maharashtra, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and other states by luring the MLAs with cash, important positions and contracts.

The ruling party alleged that each MLA was offered a deal to the tune of Rs 100 crore. Some of the TRS leaders posted on Twitter photographs of the accused with top BJP leaders, including Union ministers Rajnath Singh, G. Kishan Reddy and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath.

The saffron party hit back at TRS for what it calls insulting Hindu dharma by pointing fingers at godmen.

State BJP chief Bandi Sanjay Kumar alleged that the ‘story, screenplay and direction’ at Moinabad farmhouse is by Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao. “It has boomeranged. TRS are complainants, TRS are victims and TRS are criminals,” he said.

He dared CM KCR to come to Yadadri Lakshmi Narasimha Swamy temple and swear that he has not ‘scripted this story’.

He slammed KCR for dragging priests into the episode and alleged that he was attempting to taint the image of Hindu dharma.

He demanded that the CCTV footage of a hotel should be released where TRS MLAs were staying for the last 3-4 days. He also demanded that CCTV footage of Pragati Bhavan, the official residence of the chief minister, should be released as the MLAs had been going there every day.

The BJP leader also wanted to know why the police did not record the statements of the MLAs. “Why weren’t they taken to the police station but left to Pragati Bhavan. What were MLAs gunmen doing,” he asked.