The Congress party has requested the State election authorities to order an inquiry into the excessive publicity being given to the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samiti and its candidates in the media.
The inquiry should not only cover the channel and newspaper owned by the ruling party but also the other channels which were allocating maximum time for telecast of the TRS’ related news. “We have asked Chief Electoral Officer Rajat Kumar to look into the issue. We are prepared to take legal recourse if the officials fail to initiate action into our complaint,” Telangana Congress working president A. Revanth Reddy said.
Mr. Revanth Reddy called on the CEO on Wednesday and lodged a complaint in this regard. He lamented that though the issue had been represented to the EC in the past, no action had been initiated so far.
Mr. Revanth Reddy alleged that a section of police officials were working as “private army” of caretaker Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao as was evident from the appointment of a retired officials to oversee “tapping of telephones of leaders of opposition parties”.
The election officials were also asked to direct the Income Tax officials to keep a watch on the official residences of the ministers and senior leaders as they were being utilised for distribution of huge amounts of money to the TRS candidates.
The Congress, he said, had lodged a complaint against the TRS’ leadership utilising the Pragati Bhavan, the Chief Minister’s camp office, as a venue for party meetings. Replying to queries, he said he was confident that Mr. Rajat Kumar would initiate appropriate action into the complaints lodged by the Congress.
