The cash-for-vote scam that rocked the Telugu Desam Party last year continues to haunt party president and Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu, despite his secret understanding with his Telangana counterpart K Chandrasekhar Rao.
At a time when he thought the issue is more or less closed, the Anti-Corruption Bureau special court on Monday ordered a re-investigation into the role of Naidu in the cash-for-vote case.
The ACB court admitted a petition filed by Alla Ramakrishna Reddy, YSR Congress party MLA from Mangalagiri in Guntur district and set a deadline of September 29 to the Telangana ACB to complete the reinvestigation and submit a report.
The cash-for-note scam originally involved TDP legislator A Revanth Reddy who sought to bribe of Rs 5 crore to nominated MLA Elvis Stephenson lodged a complaint with ACB to vote in favour of party MLC nominee in Telangana Legislative Council polls held on June 1.
Revanth was caught red-handed by the ACB in a sting operation on May 31, 2015, when he was paying a bribe of Rs 50 lakh to Stephenson. Subsequently, an audio tape containing an alleged telephonic conversation between Chandrababu Naidu with Stephenson was leaked to the media.
The YSR Congress party MLA submitted the forensic report obtained from a private laboratory, which prima facie confirmed that the voice-sample in the audio tape was that of Naidu.
