Parchur TDP MLA Yeluri Sambasiva Rao faces probe for alleged voter bribing in 2019 polls

Bapatla: Officers of the AP State Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (APSDRI) cracked down on Nova Agri Tech Pvt Ltd for election malpractice and irregularities and illicit money flow. Chairman of Nova Group, who is also the TDP MLA from Parchur, Yeluri Sambasiva Rao, is now facing a probe for alleged voter bribing.

On January 24, a search under section 67(2) of the APGST Act, 2017 was conducted by APSDRI at the premises of Nova Agri Tech in Guntur.

During the search, a diary containing handwritten pages was discovered, revealing information about the bribing of voters during the 2019 general elections. The contents of the diary (entries in 13 pages) were about the cash inflow and outflow for illegal distribution of bribes to the voters just before the 2019 general election on April 11, 2019.

Ex-employee implicated

According to the officials, the diary, recovered in the presence of independent witnesses and PV Narayana, an employee of the company, implicated Pullela Ajay Babu, a former employee who retired from the company.

Pullela Ajay Babu, who was requested to explain the entries in the diary, has since been absconding from his residence and has switched off his phone.

By observing the dates and names of the villages, number of votes booth-wise, transport charges for outside voters and other details, prima facie it appeared that illegal and black money was routed through unknown and unexplained channels and utilised to bribe voters to gain undue advantage in the general elections of 2019.

The expenditure was not brought to the notice of the Election Commission of India. The employees and key persons related to the Nova Group of Companies were deployed to carry out the illegal transactions on behalf of the contesting MLA candidate Yeluri Sambasivan Rao.

Bribing voters with Rs 15 lakhs

Yeluri Sambasiva Rao won as the MLA from Parchur Assembly Constituency comprising villages such as Duddukuru, Inkollu, Tahtiparthivaripalem and Gangavaram. Data related to the distribution of money was recovered.

One entry showed the delegation of work to three employees namely, ‘Apparao/Bujjibabu/ Saiganesh’ regarding the work of distributing/bribing money of Rs 15 lakhs to voters of village Duddukuru which comes under the constituency of Paruchur.

The information was forwarded to the Bapatla District Police, who in turn addressed letters communicating the information about the illegal activities to the Income Tax authorities, Enforcement Directorate, Securities and the Exchanges Board of India.

Further, the flow of money from the Nova Group into intermediary bank accounts and by the withdrawal of cash for the apparent illegal activities is being examined.

Other bribes found in the entries are:

- The number of voters in polling booth numbers 223 to 226 of Pavuluru Village. In booth 224, there were 239 voters enlisted and for each vote, they bribed Rs 1,000. The total money given to booth 224 was shown Rs 2,39,000.

- Money shown to be spent via individuals is Rs 3,60,000.

- Money spent through a list of employees of Nova Group was mentioned.