Cash-for-vote in Telangana: New 'recording' of Chandrababu Naidu surfaces, CM says tap 'doctored'

Hyderabad: Andhra Pradesh chief minister Chandrababu Naidu on Sunday refuted a audio recoding of an alleged conversation between him and nominated Telangana MLA Elvis Stephenson in the cash-for-vote scandal in which he is allegedly heard promising to honour whatever his representatives had promised. This is perhaps for the first time in India that a phone conversation of a chief minister of a state has been allegedly tapped while allegedly trying to lure a legislator. During the conversation, Naidu purportedly assured the nominated member that he is with him. [caption id=“attachment_2284154” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  AP image[/caption] “Our people briefed me. I am with you don’t bother. For everything I am with you. What all they spoke we will honour,” a voice purported to be that of Naidu’s is heard telling the legislator. After the report, Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao met Governor Narasimhan at Raj Bhavan while Naidu called a meeting with Andhra Pradesh Director General of Police JV Ramudu and other officials to take stock of the latest situation. Rao’s meeting with the governor, the second in three days, came minutes after the release of the audio tape. Parakala Prabhakar Advisor (Communications) to the Andhra government strongly denied reports saying that the tapes were fabricated and the AP government will take up the issue seriously. The reported conversation suggested that the Andhra CM was giving “assurance of all sorts” to the MLA if he voted for the TDP nominee in the Telangana Legislative Council election. Prabhakar further alleged that the Telangana Government is trying to malign the image of the AP chief minister by resorting to cheap tactics. “It is not the chief minister’s conversation. How come they are available outside. Telangana Government has to give answer to this. Telangana CM and Home minister should give answers,” Parakala said. He said the government was taking the release of the audio tape seriously and will not keep quiet. “We will fight it legally, constitutionally and politically,” he said. He said T News, a news channel run from Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) office, released the audio tape. Prabhakar said that the Telangana CM is trying to mislead the people of Andhra Pradesh by resorting to “cheap tricks”. The anti-corruption bureau of Telangana is in the process of questioning TDP MLA Revanth Reddy and two others who have been arrested in cash-for-vote case. On 31 May, the ACB arrested Reddy for allegedly trying to bribe the nominated MLA Elvis Stephenson to vote for TDP nominee in the Telangana Legislative Council election. Based on a complaint by Stephenson, ACB officials held Revanth, Sebastian Harry and Uday Simha after they were caught while allegedly handing over Rs 50 lakh to Stephenson. with inputs from Agencies