HYDERABAD: On the last day of campaigning for the Dubbak assembly bypoll, Hyderabad police on Sunday said they had seized Rs 1 crore unaccounted cash from the brother-in-law of BJP contesting candidate M Raghunandan Rao in Begumpet.
At a media conference, Task Force officials said two persons, S Srinivas Rao and his driver T Ravi Kumar, were in their custody. Srinivas is the brother-in-law of Raghunandan Rao, they said. Police sadi they have seized Rs 1 crore, an Innova and two mobiles from the arrested duo.
While police alleged that the cash was meant to be distributed among voters ahead of the November 3 bypoll, the BJP denied it completely, saying it was the TRS gameplan to defame the party.
Sunday’s seizure comes six days after cops said they seized Rs 18.67 lakh from another relative of Rao in Siddipet, leading to a bitter war of words between the ruling TRS party and the BJP.
So far, police have seized about Rs 58 lakh of cash in connection with the Dubbak bypoll which will see a three-way battle between the TRS, Congress and BJP.
Acting on a specific tip-off, police seized Srinivas Rao’s car near Begumpet flyover while he was transporting the money.
“On enquiry, it has been revealed that the said amount was collected by Srinivas Rao from Begumpet in order to deliver it at Dubbak for distributing among the voters,” said Hyderabad police commissioner Anjani Kumar.
Kumar also said that Rao confessed that the manager of a company, belonging to a former member of parliament, handed over the cash to him to transport from Hyderabad to Dubbak.
Kumar said the information was found in the mobile phone of the accused and the seized cash and the accused were handed over to Begumpet police, who were questioning them. “The seized cash is going to be submitted in the local court,” he said.
The BJP denied the cash seizure had anything to do with them.
“We categorically deny the party or our candidate for Dubbak bypoll Raghunanadan Rao has anything to do with the cash seized. This has been a pattern to harass the party and our candidate in this poll so far in the guise of raids by the TRS regime,” K Krishna Sagar Rao, BJP spokesperson said.