Did Jagan send money to defeat KTR?

[Anta Assamey]

Bharat Rashtra Samithi working president and Telangana Information Technology minster K T Rama Rao has come out with a sensational disclosure: that YSR Congress party president and Andhra Pradesh chief minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy had sent money to defeat him in the elections.

He made this disclosure while speaking to a prominent media house in an exclusive interview on Wednesday.

Well, wait. KTR was referring to not the ongoing elections to Telangana, but to a by-election to Siricilla assembly constituency way back in 2010. Those days, Jagan was still in the Congress party and had not floated his YSR Congress party.

Recalling the incident, the BRS working president said when the Telangana movement was at its peak in 2010, he had resigned from his assembly seat from Siricilla and gone in for a by-election again to prove the Telangana sentiment among the people.

“It was a prestigious election for me, as the Congress was hell-bent on defeating me to prove that there was no Telangana sentiment. At that time, a close friend of mine told me that Jagan had sent huge amount of money to the local Congress leaders to defeat me,” he said.

On coming to know about it, KTR said, he had rushed to the village where a Congress man was distributing money.

“I asked some women who were coming out of the Congress meeting whether they were given any money. A couple of them denied, but another woman said she had indeed got Rs 600 per vote. She, however, promised that she would vote only for me,” he said, adding that that was the confidence of the people on him.

KTR, however, did not elaborate on why Jagan had sent money to defeat him. Maybe, he thought he still stood a chance of becoming the chief minister, if the TRS (now BRS) lost the elections then.