Raid News: Telangana Congress MLA Faces The ‘Tax Effect’ As I-T Sleuths Swoop Down On His Premises

Income Tax sleuths on Thursday (27 September) conducted raids on premises of Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) working president A Revanth Reddy, The Hindu reported.

The raids were conducted as part of an ongoing probe into alleged misappropriation of funds in an infrastructure company run by Reddy's brother and in connection with his role in the cash-for-votes scam. Reddy is the prime accused in the scam.
I-T sleuths raided 16 places in the city and other outstation premises. The residence of Reddy and his and his relatives’ companies were among the premises that were raided in connection with alleged tax evasion.

Apart from searching the premises of Reddy and Bishop Sebastian Harry, I-T officials also raided the house of Reddy’s close aide Udaysimha. Bishop Harry and Udaysimha are co-accused in the cash-for-vote scam.

Reddy was allegedly avoiding Income Tax (I-T) officials from Thursday morning.

“When we raided his house here, he was not there. We later got to know that he was in his Assembly constituency, Kodangal. Since morning, we were asking him to meet us, but he was avoiding us,” a top IT official said.

Reddy, then a Telugu Desam Party (TDP legislator, was caught and arrested by the .Telangana Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) officials three years ago during the cash-for- vote scam. Reddy was allegedly caught handing over Rs 50 lakh to nominated MLA Stephenson in return for support for the MLC candidate Venu Narendar Reddy of the TDP. He was later released on bail.

Reddy later defected to the Congress and was recently appointed as the Working President of Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee.