Hyderabad: Telangana’s Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) questioned Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) Working President and former minister K. T. Rama Rao in the Formula E case for nearly eight hours on Monday.
Rama Rao subsequently returned to BRS headquarters, Telangana Bhavan, to a huge welcome by the party leaders and workers.
A tense situation prevailed at the ACB office in Banjara Hills throughout the day as a large number of BRS workers tried to gather to show solidarity with Rama Rao, who had stated in the morning that he may be arrested by the ACB.
The ACB officials wanted to seize KTR’s mobile phone, but he told them that he was not carrying it. The former minister was directed to surrender his phone he used at the time of the Formula E race by June 18.
Talking to media persons at Telangana Bhavan, KTR reiterated that he was not scared of arrest. He said the ACB officials kept repeating a question since morning. He said he asked the ACB officials to show him where is corruption was in the case.
Targeting Chief Minister Revanth Reddy, the BRS leader said that ACB officials kept asking questions which they had been given. “Since Revanth Reddy was jailed once, he is trying to jail others just for sadistic pleasure. If I am put in jail, I will take rest. I will not be scared even if a hundred cases are filed and even if I am sent to jail,” he said.
KTR reached the ACB office in the morning amid tight security for the second round of questioning in the case.
He reiterated that the Chief Minister should come forward to undergo a lie detector test. “We both have ACB cases against us. I am ready for a lie-detector test, are you ready?” he asked.
Claiming that the Formula-E race boosted the image of Telangana, he alleged that the actions of the Revanth Reddy government were maligning the state.
The former minister had appeared before the ACB on January 9 in the case relating to the conduct of the Formula E race in Hyderabad in January 2023, when BRS was in power.
The ACB in December last year booked a case against KTR, former Special Chief Secretary, Municipal Administration and Urban Development (MA&UD), Arvind Kumar and the Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority’s (HMDA) former Chief Engineer B.L.N. Reddy for alleged Rs. 54.88 crore irregularities in the Formula-E deal.
The FIR was registered on a complaint by Principal Secretary, MA&UD, M. Dana Kishore, who stated that foreign remittances were made without prior approvals of the relevant regulatory authorities, which resulted in additional tax burden to HMDA to the tune of Rs. 8.06 crore.
The complainant also alleged that the payment was made while the Model Code of Conduct was in effect for the elections to the state Assembly without any prior approval of the Election Commission.
The FIR was registered under the Prevention of Corruption Act as well as under the Indian Penal Code’s (IPC) Sections 409 (criminal breach of trust) and 120B (criminal conspiracy).
(IANS)
