The Congress' Telangana unit President A Revanth Reddy appeared before the ACB court in the cash-for-vote scam on Friday, August 14. The co-accused Rudra Uday Simha and Bishop Harry Sebastian also appeared in the court. The court recorded the statements of some witnesses, including the then Assembly Secretary. The court later adjourned the hearing to September 6. It fixed the schedule for recording the statements of remaining witnesses. The sensational case had come to light in 2015 during the elections to the Telangana Legislative Council from the MLAs' quota.
The Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) had reportedly caught Revanth Reddy red-handed on May 31, 2015, when he was handing over Rs 50 lakh cash to nominated MLA Elvis Stephenson to make him vote for Narender Reddy, who was the candidate of Telugu Desam Party (TDP). The court on Friday recorded the statement of then Assembly Secretary Sada Rajaram, who was the returning officer for the MLC election. The court had, on Thursday, recorded the statements of Vem Narender Reddy's son Krishna Keerthan Reddy and Revanth Reddy's former personal assistant Saidaiah.
Revanth Reddy was then a key leader in the TDP and the case had triggered a political storm. An audiotape of TDP President and then Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu's telephonic conversation with Stephenson had also surfaced. Revanth Reddy, then an MLA, was in jail for a month in the case. The Enforcement Directorate (ED) later attached the bribe amount of Rs 50 lakh cash, seized by the ACB under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act.
In May this year, the ED filed a charge sheet against Revanth Reddy, now a Member of Parliament, former TDP MLA Sandra Venkata Veeraiah, Bishop Harry, Uday Simha, Mathaiah Jerusalem, and Vem Krishna Keerthan.
Revanth Reddy, who quit the TDP to join Congress in 2017, was elected to Lok Sabha from the Malkajgiri constituency in the 2019 elections. The Congress leadership recently appointed him as the party chief in Telangana.