ED searches Telangana Revenue Minister Ponguleti’s premises

Telangana Revenue Minister Ponguleti Srinivas Reddy. File photi
| Photo Credit: SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

The Enforcement Directorate on Friday (September 27, 2024) raided multiple premises linked to Telangana Revenue Minister Ponguleti Srinivasa Reddy and some others as part of a money laundering case

Also read: ED raids AP Mahesh Cooperative Urban Bank, seizes ₹4.27 crore jewellery

The ED teams from New Delhi arrived at 5.30 a.m. in the morning on Friday and started searching at the Minister’s residence in Narsingi apart from his offices in Jubilee Hills and Banjara Hills.

Sources said some of relatives’ residences are also being searched. Searches are going on at 16 places in the city. Apart from local police, teams of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) are providing security to the teams.

Mr. Reddy, a businessman, much before he came into politics has a construction company named after his son Raghava. He was elected as a member of Parliament from Khammam on the YSRCP ticket in 2014 and later joined the Bharat Rashtra Samiti (BRS). He was denied ticket in 2019 elections by the BRS.

Before the 2018 Assembly elections, he decided to leave the BRS but dilly dallied with his decision to join the Congress or the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) as both the parties lured him given his stronghold on Khammam district.

Mr. Reddy joined the Congress before the Assembly elections vowing that he would ensure no BRS leader from Khammam district would touch the Assembly gates. BRS lost badly in Khammam despite holding majority seats in the district earlier. He was later inducted into Revanth Reddy’s cabinet with important portfolios of Revenue and Information and Public Relations.

The Assembly results repeated in the Parliament elections as well with Mr. Reddy ensuring that his daughter’s father-in-law Ramasahayam Raghuram Reddy emerged victorious with huge margin of over 5 lakhs.

Interestingly, Mr. Reddy’s residence and offices were searched by the ED on November 3 last year during the elections.