Slamming Chief Minister Revanth Reddy after receiving fresh summons to appear before the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) on 16 June in connection with the Hyderabad Formula E race, a miffed BRS working president, KT Rama Rao, challenged the former to a lie detection test on television. He lashed out at the Chief Minister, accusing him of resorting to “notice drama” to cover up his governance failures. Rao claimed that the public funds transferred to Formula E organisers by his government were still lying in the same account, and that the Congress government had failed to retrieve them due to its incompetence.
Former Municipal Affairs and Urban Development Minister KT Rama Rao has received a fresh summons to appear before the ACB on 16 June at 10 am. He said he would appear before the probe agency — his second appearance in the case. On 26 May, Rao was served a summons to appear before the agency on 28 May. However, he sought time from the agency since he was scheduled to travel abroad.
After receiving the fresh summons on Friday, Rao said, “This joker Chief Minister is donning a new disguise each day to shift focus from his governance failures. No matter how many notices he sends, this bankrupt Congress government cannot stop us from being the voice of the people of Telangana.”
He claimed that Rs 44 crore was transferred to the Formula E organisers transparently and it is still in their account, while putting the onus on the Chief Minister for failing to retrieve the sum. “Yet, the Chief Minister, who has failed to retrieve this money due to sheer administrative incapacity, is now once again using ACB notices to create a political spectacle,” he said. He went on to add, “If you’re truly serious about integrity, stop wasting taxpayers’ money and agree to a lie detector test.
The ACB has accused KT Rama Rao of committing irregularities in the Formula E case, directly transferring funds to the organisers when the official sponsors backed out. Rao maintained that procedures were jumped because it was election time, and he had done it to save the image of the state. The BRS government wanted the Formula E race to be held in 2024 after its success in 2023, but the event was cancelled by the Congress government after it came to power, citing huge costs.