ED searches offices of ex-union minister Sujana Chowdary

HYDERABAD: Enforcement Directorate teams from Chennai searched the offices of former Union minister and Rajya Sabha member Y Sujana Chowdary, of the Telugu Desam Party (TDP), in Hyderabad.

Apart from seizing documents, the officials also seized six highend cars from the residence of Chowdary under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act. ED officials have also served summons on the Rajya Sabha member, asking him to appear before it on November 27 for further investigation. Chowdary didn’t respond to queries. A spokesperson of the Sujana group of companies said officials conducted searches as a part of a decade-old probe.

The ED teams reached Hyderabad on Friday to conduct the searches. In a statement on Saturday evening, ED said it conducted searches based on a complaint filed by Central Bank of India, Andhra Bank and Corporation Bank that Best & Crompton Engineering Projects, a Sujana group entity, had caused a loss of `656 crore.


The ED said searches were conducted at eight locations – seven in Hyderabad and one in Delhi – “which reveals that the banks have been defrauded by the group companies to the tune of more than `5,700 crore.” Further, the ED said it has recovered documents that showed various cases were pending against the group companies.

Andhra’s Finance Minister Yanamala Ramakrishnudu alleged the searches were part of a conspiracy hatched by the Narendra Modi government. “Narendra Modi is going to suffer an unexpected defeat in 2019 elections and TDP president Chandrababu Naidu is going to play a vital role in deciding who the prime minister will be after the 2019 polls,” he added.

TDP had pulled out of the BJP-led ruling coalition at the Centre in March.