Telangana state Congress president A Revanth Reddy was on Tuesday detained by the state police for unlawful gathering and whisked away from the Martyr’s Memorial at Gun Park when he reached there to take a pledge against distribution of money and liquor among the electorate.

Bribing voters with liquor and money is a common practice in the state and the Election Commission has decided to crack down on the menace after the Munugode bypoll last year that saw a free flow of both money and liquor.

After the BRS accused the Congress of bringing in loads of cash from neighbouring Karnataka to fund the Telangana elections, Revanth Reddy challenged the BRS chief and state Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao two days ago inviting him to come to the Martyr’s Memorial and take a pledge with him neither to spend a rupee nor distribute a drop of liquor among the voters.

However, when the PCC chief reached the Gun Park with his supporters, he was detained by the police following a long argument and was eventually taken away to Congress headquarters, Gandhi Bhavan, along with another leader, Anjan Yadav.

Apparently, he had not taken prior permission for the event. A few days ago, when the IT Department raided the flat of a contractor and seized Rs 42 crore in cash, the BRS said it was election funding for Telangana Congress prompting Reddy to challenge KCR.

“Harish Rao and KTR are accusing the Congress of getting money from neighbouring states to distribute cash and liquor for elections. We saw in the recent by-elections the BJP and BRS fought each other spending crores of rupees,” said Reddy at Gandhi Bhavan.

He went on to add, “During elections in Munugode, liquor worth Rs 300 crore was sold in 20 days. We did not give money or liquor in Munugode as we didn’t have that much money. After Huzurabad and Munugode elections the whole world said liquor and distribution of money won.”

He said KCR does not have the guts to take the pledge as he firmly believes in bribing voters with money and liquor.

BJP’s complaint to EC

Meanwhile, the Telangana BJP has written to the Election Commission seeking transfers of key officials in the Prohibition and Excise Department, particularly excise superintendents of Malkajgiri, Saroornagar and Shamshabad.

The BJP, in its complaint, pointed out that V Srinivas Goud, the minister for excise, had founded the Telangana Non-Gazetted Officers’ Association when he was a leader of the Government Employees Union before contesting elections and some of the office-bearers of the organisation hold key posts as excise superintendents.

Also, in July the minister had initiated the transfer of key officials in the department through state Industry Minister KT Rama Rao, who had sent the list for the consideration of the chief secretary.

It may be noted here that three days after the Model Code of Conduct came into effect the EC transformed 13 police officers including the CP of Hyderabad, four district collectors as well as a number of officials including Director of Excise Musharraf Ali Faruqui.