The TRS Government in Telangana on Monday re-nominated Elvis Stephenson as a member of the State Assembly. At the first meeting of the new cabinet, Chief Minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao decided to re-nominate Stephenson, a member of Anglo-Indian community. This will enable him to take oath along with the newly-elected MLAs on January 17.
According a statement from the Chief Minister's office, for the first time the Anglo-Indian community representative had been nominated even before the elected MLAs could took oath as members.
61-year-old Stephenson was nominated to the Assembly in 2014 after the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) formed the first government in the newly created state.
The TRS, which retained power in last month's elections, appears to have rewarded Stephenson for getting a key opposition leader arrested for offering him a bribe to make him vote for the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) candidate in Legislative Council elections in 2015.
Revanth Reddy, then leader of TDP, was caught red-handed by the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) on May 31, 2015, when he was offering Rs 50 lakh as bribe to Stephenson, who had lodged a complaint with the anti-graft agency. The nominated MLA was promised Rs 5 crore to cast his vote. Revanth has since defected to the Congress.
The ACB, which had laid a trap on a complaint by Stephenson, also arrested Revanth Reddy's aides.
The ACB had earlier said that there were 516 telephone conversation records in the phone of Sebastian, one of the aides arrested, of which 102 are related to the cash-for-vote case.
Later, an audio tape of Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu's alleged telephonic conversation with Stephenson also surfaced. The TRS had alleged that Naidu was the brain behind ‘cash-for-vote' scam.
In May last year, KCR's decision to hold a review meeting on the controversial case had triggered a massive political row.
Revanth Reddy had held a press meet, where he told reporters, “Unable to digest opposition leaders pointing out his fault, KCR, on the orders of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, is playing this game. It is because of this that he called for the meeting and ensured that the newspapers and other media channels reported it.”
IANS inputs