After questioning Mr Ram Manohar Naidu, son of minister for roads and buildings Dharmana Prasada Rao, on allegations that he received kickbacks from liquor syndicates in Srikakulam, the ACB sleuths on Tuesday questioned the minister’s personal assistants, Ravi Shankar and Appa Rao. The duo were also accused of being involved in the case.
While Mr Ram Manohar Naidu was quizzed for over four hours, the minister’s assistants were questioned for more than five hours. It is learnt that the ACB would question some more persons from Srikakulam on Wednesday — YSRC MLA Dharmana Krishna Das, P.A. Satyanarayana, one Venkat, Uppala Hari and K. Kishore Kumar. The ACB has also summoned the TD MLA from Vizag East, Velagapudi Ramakrishna Babu, and former Congress corporator Saragadam Chinna Appala Naidu to appear before it on Thursday.
Khammam politicians quizzed by ACB
A day after interrogating liquor syndicate leader Nunna Venkata Ramana, the ACB sleuths quizzed three Khammam politicians involved in the liquor scam case on Tuesday — Sattupalli Desam MLA Sandra Venkata Veeraiah, former MLC and CPI state secretariat member Puvvada Nageswara Rao and CPI ML New Democracy district secretary Potu Ranga Rao.
In his confessional statement before the ACB sleuths earlier, Nunna Venkata Ramana named these three MLAs for accepting bribes in the liquor scam case. Mr Venkata Ramana, in his statement to the ACB, claimed to have handed over Rs 3 lakh liquor money to Sandra Venkata Veeraiah and Rs4.5 lakh to CPI ML New Democracy leader Potu Ranga Rao. However, sources said that during their separate questioning by ACB Warangal DSP Sudershan Goud, the MLAs denied any links with Mr Venkata Ramana.
Meanwhile, the ACB sleuths are now planning to grill Mahabubabad MLA Maloth Kavita, who has been summoned for questioning on Wednesday for allegedly receiving Rs 5 lakh as kickback from the liquor syndicate. Also, there are doubts whether the ACB sleuths would also question the tainted Warangal police officials including four DSPs, seven CIs, two ASIs, seven SIs and 20 constables figuring in their remand report.