Andhra, Telangana in tit-for-tat moves over cash-for-vote scam

Hyderabad - Seeking to turn the tables on the Telangana government, the TDP leaders have been alleging that their phones were being tapped illegally.

The cash-for-vote scam has triggered a political war between Telangana and Andhra Pradesh with the two Telugu states initiating tit-for-tat moves.
The Telangana Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) served a notice to a driver of AP Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu's son N Lokesh in connection with the scam involving the leaders of the Telugu Desam Party which is in power in AP. In a swift reaction, the AP Crime Investigation Department (CID) served a similar notice to a driver attached to Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao's son and IT Minister K T Rama Rao in the alleged phone tapping case.
The dramatic developments come in the backdrop of a flurry of allegations and counter-allegations by the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) and TDP leaders over the twin scandals.
The bitter row had started soon after the arrest of a senior TDP legislator and deputy floor leader in the Telangana Assembly A Revanth Reddy on May 31 when he was caught red-handed offering bribe to a nominated MLA in Telangana Assembly Elvis Stephenson to cast his vote in favour of a TDP candidate in the elections to Legislative Council.
A week later, an audio tape had surfaced purportedly containing Chandrababu Naidu's conversation with Stephenson and assuring him of "honoring all commitments" if he voted in favour of TDP.
Seeking to turn the tables on the Telangana government, the TDP leaders have been alleging that their phones were being tapped illegally. The AP government launched investigations on charges of phone tapping against the Telangana government, and served a notice to T-News, a local vernacular channel partly owned by TRS chief K Chandrasekhara Rao's family, which first aired the audio tape. It has also summoned various telecom companies for a probe and registered cases against Telangana CM under various sections.
The latest move by the two governments to serve notices on the drivers of key political leaders assumes significance in the backdrop of mounting internal pressure to speed up investigations in the two cases.
The Telangana ACB officials served notice to M Kondal Reddy, driver of Naidu's son, asking him to appear before the agency for questioning. The ACB team first visited the Chief Minister's Jubilee Hills residence to serve the notice. When the security staff told them that Kondal Reddy was not available, the officials then visited his residence at Yousufguda and pasted the notice on the door of his house.
Hours later, a team from the Andhra Pradesh CID drove to the Telangana Chief Minister's camp office at Begumpet to serve notices to the IT Minister's driver Satyanarayana and his gunman Janakiram on the basis of a complaint lodged by TDP leader Mathias Jerusalem who is an accused in the cash for vote case.

• India