A BOTCHED OPERATION?

A political storm hit Telangana just over a week before the crucial Munugode byelection on November 3. Its epicentre: a farmhouse in Moinabad, about 30 kilometres from state capital Hyderabad. During a raid at the farmhouse on October 26, the Cyberabad police arrested three men-alleged to be "agents" of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-for trying to "poach" four MLAs of the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS). All four had switched over to the TRS from the Congress after the 2018 assembly election.

- Amarnath K. Menon

After the bust, the TRS has quite triumphantly claimed to have stopped the BJP's 'Operation Lotus' in its tracks in Telangana. Meanwhile, the saffron party, which has been making rapid strides to emerge as an alternative to the TRS in the state, has dubbed the whole affair a "drama" manufactured by the Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao-led regime for electoral gains in the byelection. Notably, the bypoll for the Manugode assembly seat was necessitated after the sitting Congress MLA, K. Rajagopal Reddy, resigned from the party. He is now in the race as the BJP candidate, amid allegations of massive inducements.

According to the FIR registered in the alleged MLA poaching case, the TRS legislators were offered Rs 50-100 crore each, apart from plum posts and central government contracts, exchange for joining the BJP and "destabilising" the state government. This 'carrot' was allegedly dangled before them along with the 'stick' of imminent CBI and ED raids if they were to refuse the offer. "We had received information from the ruling party MLAs that unknown godmen and a Hyderabad-based hotelier were making attempts to offer them a large amount of cash besides contracts," says Cyberabad police commissioner Stephen Ravindra.