The alleged plan to murder Minister V. Srinivas Goud has been “scripted and directed” by Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao himself but it has turned out to be an “utter flop”, charged BJP leaders led by party president Bandi Sanjay Kumar on Thursday.
In this “drama”, some senior police officers “seemed to have played a part and it is a matter of regret”, said the Karimnagar MP after holding day long confabulations with the party leaders, including vice president D.K. Aruna, former MP Jitendendra Reddy and legal teams on the strategy to be adopted.
This was after Cyberbad Police Commissioner Stephen Ravindra told a press conference, quite sensationally, that four ‘followers’ of Mr. Jitendra Reddy were arrested from his New Delhi residence as they had “conspired to kill the TRS Minister by engaging hired killers”.
Actually, the buzz in the days before this had happened was four persons, who had complained to the Election Commission about Mr. Goud’s election affidavit being “tampered with” were “kidnapped” by unknown persons a few days ago, who the police commissioner later admitted were policemen!
The BJP president demanded a full fledged inquiry into the entire episode and said the party will approach the highest investigation agencies for the same, including the role being played by the newly appointed political strategist.
Mr. Sanjay Kumar strongly objected to the police getting involved in a political slugfest and “dragging away people from Delhi” without seeking a transit visa from the police there. He pointed out that Ms. Aruna has been a Minister and Mr. Reddy an MP twice - yet stories are circulated around about their involvement in the murder plan. Incidentally, both hail from Mahabubnagar, also the political stronghold of the Minister.
"I have gone through the FIR - first investigation report and also the remand report and nowhere the names of these two leaders have been mentioned but media houses aligned to the ruling party have been running screaming headlines about their involvement," he pointed out.
It is part of the overall strategy of the Chief Minister to "protect his corrupt Minister" and harass the persons who had also complained about Mr Goud's "illegal land and sand mafia activities" in the district., he maintained
The BJP chief said it is strange that the persons seeking protection from the Minister are now being accused of plotting to murder him. He expected truth to be unravelled in courts.
“We are not going to run away from the political battle because of these false cases,” he added.
