Telangana BJP continued to focus on the controversial phone-tapping by the erstwhile BRS government and called upon the Election Commission (EC) and other statutory bodies to take suo motu note of the ongoing investigations and take appropriate action against the perpetrators responsible for the offence.
Party president and Union Minister G. Kishan Reddy demanded stringent action against former Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao for “orchestrating snooping on his political opponents, businesspersons and others, thereby intruding into the individual privacy, and violating law and all established norms”.
“This evidence is sufficient to take tough action against KCR and his family, including his son K.T. Rama Rao, as they have been directly involved. It has impeded upon the issues of national security and integrity. The EC should even re-consider about the BRS recognition as a political party,” he told a press conference at the State BJP office on Thursday.
“KCR had ruled Telangana like a Nizam and ran a jungle raj or like a private limited company with utter disregard to democratic values. He ordered phone-tapping to crush the Opposition, reap political benefit, win elections and extort businesspersons,” he charged.
The normal procedure for phone-tapping is to take the consent of the Union Home Secretary clearly defining why it was a matter of national security and provide in writing on the information secured but this was not done, he said.
The party too is considering to file an official complaint with the EC and others since elections post 2018 could have been influenced by the snooping, he said and accused KTR of changing his stance on the issue. “Was (KTR) not the shadow CM? How can he shrug off responsibility,” he questioned.
No right to seek votes
Mr. Kishan Reddy also lambasted the Congress Government and said it had no right to seek votes for the Lok Sabha polls without implementing the promised guarantees, including farm loan waiver. “The CM is too busy with planning defections from other parties, at least his government should announce bonus since paddy procurement had begun,” he said.
