Huzurabad bypoll: Cash, other banned items worth Rs 3.3 Cr seized
Huzurabad by-election, which is scheduled to be held on October 30.
Hyderabad: The Election Commission of India (ECI) has so far seized cash, liquor, gold, Ganja and other banned items worth Rs 3.3 crore in the run up to the Huzurabad by-election, which is scheduled to be held on October 30. The campaigning is heating up by both the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi and BJP’s Eatala Rajender, who are the two main contenders.
According to the seizure note from the ECI, cash has been the most seized item by officials. In total so far, Rs 3.09 crore cash was found by police and Income Tax department officials in Huzurabad. Aside from that, over 1,068 litres of liquor, valued at nearly Rs 7 lakh has also been seized by cops and officials from the state excise department.
Aside from that, officials have also seized saris and shirts (that are meant for distribution to voters) worth Rs 2.21 lakh, and 11.41 kilograms of Ganja (worth Rs 69,750). Out of all the items that have been found by officials, gold and silver pegged at Rs 10,60,000 are also part of the seizures.
In the upcoming Huzurabad bypoll, which will be held on October 30, the TRS’s candidate is local partyman Gellu Srinivas Yadav, who will be facing-off Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) Eatala Rajender. In the previous 2018 state elections, Rajender who was then with the TRS, secured 104469 votes, with Congress candidate P. Kaushik Reddy getting 60604 votes. The BJP’s Raghu Puppala got a paltry 1670 votes. In the 2018 state elections, the BJP also won just one out of 119 seats.
For Eatala Rajender, the bypoll is also a prestige issue, given that he is a former aide of KCR, and an ex-TRS minister. Rajender was sacked from the Telangana cabinet in May this year after lang-grabbing allegations surfaced against him. He then quit as an MLA and joined the BJP in June. A win for him will be a big slap on the face for KCR, and will also give a boost to the BJP, which has been staking claim as the main opposition party in the state, a position which the Congress held naturally until recently.
