Hyderabad: BRS MLA Padi Kaushik Reddy on Tuesday alleged that Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy sold the votes of eight MPs to the BJP, enabling them to vote in favour of the NDA candidate in the election for the Vice President of India.

Addressing a press conference at Telangana Bhavan, Kaushik Reddy claimed that out of 15 votes that were cross-voted, eight belonged to the Congress party from Telangana. He alleged that Revanth Reddy was caught red-handed during the Vice Presidential elections. “Revanth Reddy sold the votes of Telangana MPs. He sold the votes of Congress MPs to BJP,” said Kaushik Reddy.

He cited a tweet by senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh, who had stated that the Congress candidate, former Supreme Court judge Sudarshan Reddy, had secured 315 votes. Kaushik Reddy highlighted that the candidate only received 300 votes, questioning where the 15 missing votes went. He claimed that eight Telangana Congress MPs had cross-voted for the NDA candidate.

The BRS leader further claimed that after the elections, the eight Congress MPs met Union Ministers Nirmala Sitharaman and Nitin Gadkari and also the Lok Sabha Speaker. He alleged that three of these MPs had personally told him that they had voted for the BJP Vice Presidential candidate. He also accused Revanth Reddy of cheating Sudarshan Reddy and paying money to Chandrababu Naidu and Modi. “Rahul Gandhi is talking about vote theft. Congress is stealing the Chief Minister’s vote in Telangana,” he added.