In an interesting twist to the case of alleged attempt to poach four Telangana Rashtra Samithi MLAs into the Bharatiya Janata Party, the special investigation team of the Telangana police is learnt to have found that one of the three accused in the case has close connections with a relative of BJP state president Bandi Sanjay.
According to sources, the SIT, headed by Hyderabad police commissioner C V Anand, during its investigation detected that an advocate in Karimnagar, who is a relative of Bandi Sanjay, had booked the air ticket for Simhayaji, one of the accused in the case, on October 26 from Tirupati to Hyderabad.
The sources said the advocate, reportedly practising in Karimnagar, had also spoken to Nanda Kumar, another of the accused who was arrested, on October 14, after which he booked the ticket for Simhayaji on October 26.
The police also verified call data records of the accused and found that the BJP state president’s relative has been in touch with them, indicating that the party was indeed involved in the covert operation.
“Perhaps, that is the reason why the BJP has been repeatedly moving court to stall the investigation into the case,” a police official said.
Sources said that during the SIT investigation, the three accused had confessed that they took up the operation at the instance of the top leadership of the BJP in New Delhi.
That is why Bandi had staged the entire drama of going to the Yadadri temple and taking an oath stating that the BJP had no connection with the covert operation and also exposing why the BJP was filing petition after petition.
Another development was that the four TRS MLAs, who are involved in the sting operation that laid bare the BJP plans to topple the TRS government, are now getting threat calls from Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat.
Sources said the MLAs are likely to lodge a complaint with the police soon on these threat calls.
