The phone tapping row is creating tremors all over. As the investigation intensifies, officials are unearthing several events of the past allegedly linked with the phone tapping issue. The TDP government between 2014 and 2019 was also a victim of it, say reports. Now the whole issue is back into the limelight as none other than now CM Revanth Reddy was a direct victim of it back then, and he was arrested as well.
During an MLC election held in 2015, the then TDP MLA Revanth Reddy was cleverly tricked and trapped. Revanth was caught with cash. In connection with this incident, phone call recordings of several key people were illegally obtained, and some of the audio recordings were leaked to the media.
An alleged conversation between then Andhra CM Chandrababu and a nominated MLA recording went viral. The whole issue created a huge storm politically. It cornered Chandrababu and TDP to the core. A huge propaganda against Naidu was done and projected him as the mastermind of the cash-for-votes. This eventually led to the TDP government shifting to AP suddenly, though Hyderabad remained the joint capital as per the AP States Reorganisation Act 2014.
However, the then AP government took serious note of the whole row and took up the investigation on tapping. Based on this, Chandrababu strongly demanded that Section 8 should be implemented in the common capital Hyderabad as per the Reorganisation Act and that the common Governor Narasimhan should supervise Law and Order.
Regardless of the reasons, the then Center and the Governor at that time ignored such a big issue even when the two state governments were crossing swords against one another. On the other hand, then AP opposition leader YS Jagan had cornered Chandrababu’s government to the core.
Eventually, the TRS (now BRS) had taken over the TDP leaders and cadre in Telangana. Allegedly, the phone tapping was applied on several leaders at various levels and took advantage of their situation. On the whole, now all fingers are pointing at the BRS party. It needs to be seen where this will end. The Revanth Reddy government is leaving no stone unturned to corner the previous government’s illegal actions.