Election Commission wants vigorous probe of cash-for-vote case: ACB

HYDERABAD: The Election Commission of India wanted the Telangana government to probe the cash-for-vote case involving the TDP MLA A Revanth Reddy and others "vigorously" and "take it to its logical end", the state ACB director general A K Khan said here.

"This has been communicated by the Chief Electoral Officer of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh (Bhanwar Lal) to the ACB yesterday," Khan said in a release today.

Elvis Stephenson (MLA representing Anglo Indian community in Telangana Legislative Assembly) has alleged in his written complaint that he was offered Rs 5 crore to vote in favour of TDP nominee in the Telangana Legislative Council election on June 1.

A case under Prevention of Corruption Act and section 120 (b) (criminal conspiracy) of IPC was subsequently registered and Revanth along with Bishop Sebastian Harry and Uday Simha were arrested while handing over an advance.

ACB also collected some evidence in the form of recordings, including that of a purported conversation between Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister (and TDP chief) N Chandrababu Naidu and Stephenson. These recordings have been sent to forensic science laboratory.

The surfacing of recordings triggered a war of words between Naidu and his Telangana counterpart K Chandrasekhar Rao.