BRS condemns booking of criminal case against its MLA

Hyderabad, July 3 (IANS) Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) working president K. T. Rama Rao on Wednesday condemned the criminal case against party MLA Padi Kaushik Reddy.

He alleged that the Huzurabad MLA was booked as he was fighting against the Congress government's corruption.

Rama Rao made it clear that the BRS leaders will not be cowed down by such threatening tactics by the ruling party.

KTR, as the BRS leader is popularly known, alleged that the government is booking false cases against those questioning it.

He slammed the Congress government for implicating public representatives in false cases for questioning "people's government".

The BRS working president asked in a statement if it was a crime to raise people's issues during the Zilla Parishad meeting. He also asked if it was wrong on the part of the MLA to hold a meeting on the facilities being provided to students in government schools in his constituency. He questioned how the District Educational Officer can issue notices to Mandal Education Officers for attending the meeting.

KTR said the BRS would legally face false cases being booked against its leaders by the Congress government.

Another BRS leader T. Harish Rao alleged that the Congress government failed to effectively govern the state and to hide this "failure", it was hatching conspiracies and booking cases against the government.

The former minister said the Congress had thrown governance to the wind and as a result, there are atrocities, murders and suicides everywhere.

One Town Police Station in Karimnagar on Wednesday registered a case against Kaushik Reddy, the BRS MLA from Huzurabad constituency, for obstructing officials from their duty during the meeting of Karimnagar Zilla Parishad.

Kaushik Reddy became the first MLA in Telangana to be booked under Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), the new criminal code which came into effect on July 1.

On a complaint by Zilla Parishad CEO Srinivas, police registered a case against Kaushik Reddy under BNS sections 221 (obstructing public servant in discharge of public functions) and126 (2) (wrongful restraint).

The MLA had staged a protest during the Zilla Parishad general body meeting on Tuesday demanding the suspension of the District Education Officer (DEO).

The BRS leader along with other ZPTCs sat at the meeting hall door preventing Collector Pamela Sathpathy from leaving the hall.

Kaushik Reddy was demanding the suspension of DEO V. S. Janardhan Rao for issuing notices to Mandal Education Officers (MEOs) for participating in the Huzurabad constituency-level education meeting organised by him.