No less than 25 law enforcement officials fashioned a devoted crew to trace Telangana Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy throughout his tenure as an opposition chief beneath the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) regime.
The surveillance initiative stemmed from Revanth’s direct and private assaults on the BRS management, together with the then Chief Minister Okay Chandrasekhar Rao, sources disclosed to TOI.
Chosen by intelligence chiefs, the “most trusted and environment friendly officers” had been assigned varied duties, starting from cellphone tapping to monitoring Revanth’s Banjara Hills residence. Moreover, efforts had been made to determine and monitor people financially supporting Revanth, notably throughout elections, alongside monitoring his political gimmicks.
Whereas a number of opposition figures underwent scrutiny, Revanth emerged as the first goal, with former BRS minister and present BJP chief Eatala Rajender following carefully behind. Rajender’s monitoring commenced following his fallout with KCR in 2021.
Though Revanth was initially booked within the cash-for-vote case in 2015 with intelligence help, sustained monitoring had reportedly commenced in 2018 upon his affiliation with the Congress and subsequent appointment as Telangana Pradesh Congress working president. The devoted “Revanth crew” inside the Particular Intelligence Bureau (SIB) remained operational till the declaration of meeting election ends in December 2023.
Sources emphasised Revanth’s aggressive stance not solely towards KCR but in addition towards his relations and shut associates, making him a chief goal. Hypothesis arose concerning whether or not the choice to provoke surveillance originated independently inside the SIB or upon directives from political authorities.
Regardless of ongoing investigations into the phone-tapping case, no recorded conversations have surfaced till now.
Former SIB deputy superintendent of police, D Praneeth Rao, allegedly wiped saved knowledge and destroyed digital units.
Nonetheless, investigators have efficiently traced the cellphone numbers of opposition leaders and their associates topic to monitoring, with Praneeth being the primary police officer arrested in reference to the case.
