Hyderabad: Anti-Corruption Bureau court in Hyderabad Tuesday remanded Sandra Venkata Veeraiah, Telugu Desam legislator from Telangana, in 14 days judicial custody in connection with the cash-for-vote scam.
Veeraiah, who was grilled by ACB detectives for more than eight hours on Monday and arrested the same evening, was named as an accused in the case of bribing a nominated member of Telangana Assembly Elvis Stephenson.
Veeraiah, who represents Sattupally constituency of Khammam district. is the second Telugu Desam MLA to be arrested in the case. Earlier, the ACB had laid the trap and arrested TDP deputy leader in Telangana Assembly A. Revanth Reddy while he was allegedly handing over Rs 5 million to the nominated MLA as an advance on May 31. While Revanth Reddy and two other accused were released on bail by the state High Court last week, Veeraiah has now landed behind the bars.
After evading the questioning for almost a fortnight, he appeared before the ACB on Monday. The ACB contended that Veeraiah was consistently in touch with Revanth Reddy and other accused during the process of luring the Stephenson and he was aware of a larger conspiracy behind the operation.
At the court, Veeraiah told the reporters that he will politically fight back. “The arrest of Telugu Desam MLAs in the cash-for-vote scam is a conspiracy by Telangana government and we will face it politically”, he said.
“The TRS had got only 63 seats in the assembly elections. How has it gone up to 82 now”, he asked charging the ruling party with luring legislatorss of other parties.
Meanwhile, the ACB moved a petition before the court seeking five days custody of Veeraiah for further questioning. But his lawyers opposed and moved a petition seeking his release on bail. The court will take up the hearing of both the petitions on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, the ACB was looking for the other two accused — Jerusalem Muttaiah and Jimmy Babu.
