Revanth Reddy Threatens Defamation Suit Against Media Houses

Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) working president A Revanth Reddy said that the news published / telecast by some media houses during the IT raids on his house that he had accounts in foreign countries were defamatory in nature, and revealed that the IT officials had questioned him on the allegations / claims in those reports too when they interrogated him on Wednesday.

Reddy warned that he would file defamation cases against the media houses which had spread the false news if they failed to tender apologies within 24 hours.

Speaking to the media today, Reddy also launched a fusillade of allegations against caretaker Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao, who he said was behaving like a monkey that had drunk toddy and had then gotten bitten by a scorpion since the abolition of the Assembly.

He demanded that KCR, who was claiming that Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister and TDP chief N Chandrababu Naidu had given Rs. 500 crores to the Congress to be part of the grand alliance, tell how many crores he had himself taken when he had had an alliance with the TDP in the past.

He also pointed out that the TRS government had withdrawn only 1,150 of the 3,152 cases filed against the protagonists of the Telangana movement between 2009 and 2014. Claiming that the government could lift all cases with a single resolution in the Assembly, he said that KCR withdrew only the cases that he wanted to, and that even TRS student leader Munnuru Ravi faced six months' imprisonment. He asked the central government why it had withdrawn cases against the KCR family and not those against the protagonists of Telangana. Students were not getting jobs due to the cases though they were eligible after getting ranks in the concerned competitive examinations, Reddy said. Golden Telangana was confined to only the KCR family, Reddy said derisively.

Reddy also accused KCR of using the Telangana movement and all the sacrifices that lakhs of people had made for it, for personal aggrandizement. KCR had become a central minister and a chief minister, had launched a channel and a newspaper, and had earned crores in assets only after launching the separate Telangana movement, Reddy claimed. In the same manner, T Harish Rao and K T Rama Rao had become ministers, K Kavitha had become an MP, and KCR's co-brother's son had become a Rajya Sabha member.

Reddy said that KCR was giving an impression that the elections were between Chandrababu Naidu and him, and was trying to take advantage of the Telangana sentiment once again that way, when statehood for Telangana was actually accorded by the Congress. Chandrababu Naidu and Lokesh Naidu did not have votes in Telangana, Revanth Reddy pointed out. He asked KCR to take him on if he wanted to exploit the cash-for-vote case, and said that KCR would need to cross him first if he wanted to do anything to Chandrababu Naidu.