IT dept raids premises of Telangana Congress leader Revanth Reddy

Income Tax department on Thursday raided the residence and offices of former legislator and Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee working president Anumula Revanth Reddy in Hyderabad, triggering a war of words between the state unit of the Congress and the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS).

Two teams from the IT department began simultaneous raids on Revanth’s house at Jubilee Hills, the office of his infrastructure company and also the residences of his relatives.

“Search operations were going on at 15 different places including Revanth’s house at Kodangal town in Mahbubnagar district,” said an IT department officialwho did not wish to be named. The ex-MLA and his family members were not at home when the search operations began.

The Telangana unit of the Congress described the IT raids as political vendetta by the ruling TRS in collusion with the Bharatiya Janata Party government at the Centre.

TPCC president N Uttam Kumar Reddy tweeted that the TRS and BJP were hand in glove in launching a witch-hunt against their political rivals before the elections.

“A few days ago, the Hyderabad police dug out a 14-year old case of passport fraud against our senior leader and former MLA from Sangareddy T Jayaprakash Reddy and arrested him. Now, it is the turn of Revanth Reddy who has been aggressively attacking the TRS leadership and exposing the misrule of KCR,” Reddy said.

He said such raids were aimed at demoralising the opposition, and warned that the people would teach a fitting lesson to KCR for being hand in glove with the BJP and indulging in politically motivated raids against the strong leaders like Revanth.

The TRS, however, brushed aside the allegations and said the KCR



government had nothing to do with the IT raids.

“In what way we are concerned with the raids by a central government agency? The Congress party is enacting a big drama only to gain sympathy and political mileage,” TRS spokesman and MLC P Sudhakar Reddy said.

Revanth Reddy represented Kodangal assembly constituency in the recently dissolved Telangana assembly. He defected from the Telugu Desam Party into the Congress early this year and was elevated to the post of TPCC working president last week.

The IT raids followed a complaint lodged in July this year by a Hyderabad-based advocate Immaneni Rama Rao with the Enforcement Directorate authorities who had, in turn, forwarded the complaint to the IT department.

In his complaint, the advocate alleged that Revanth along with eight others, including his father-in-law S Padma Reddy and brother-in-law S Jayaprakash Reddy, had floated an infrastructure company by name Sri Sai Mourya Estates And Projects Pvt Ltd in 2003. The company had stopped showing records to the IT authorities after 2010 and had siphoned off Rs 200 crore to Rs 300 crore to 18 shell companies, the advocate complained.

On May 31, 2015, Revanth Reddy was caught by the Telangana Anti-Corruption Bureau while allegedly paying a bribe of Rs 50 lakh to Elvis Stephenson, a nominated MLA, for supporting TDP nominee Vem Narendar Reddy in Legislative Council elections held on June 1, 2015. “This amount of Rs 50 lakh was also part of the amount siphoned by Revanth from the infrastructure company,” Rama Rao alleged.

A few days ago, the Hyderabad police issued notice to Revanth Reddy to join investigations in a case relating to alleged irregularities committed by office-bearers of a Co-operative Housing Society in 2004.