VIJAYAWADA : The AP State Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (APSDRI), in its recent crackdown on Nova Agri Tech Pvt Ltd, has found alleged electoral malpractices committed by the management. It was allegedly involved in illicit money flow and electoral irregularities.
Yeluri Sambasiva Rao, TDP MLA from Parchur in Bapatla district, is the chairman of Nova group. On being informed by SDRI, Bapatla police have reportedly alerted the Income Tax, Enforcement Directorate, and Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) about the alleged illegal activities.
According to APSDRI, searches were conducted at the premises of Nova Agri Tech Pvt Ltd in Guntur under Section 67 (2) of the APGST Act, 2017 on January 24. During the searches, the officials had found a diary revealing information about the bribing of voters during the 2019 Assembly elections. The officials said the entries written in 13 pages of the diary mentioned the cash inflow and outflow for alleged illegal distribution of money to the voters just before the polling date, April 11, 2019.
The diary was recovered in the presence of witnesses and PV Narayana, an employee of the firm, who had implicated Pullela Ajay Babu, an ex-employee.
When Ajay Babu was asked to explain the entries in the diary, he allegedly absconded from his residence and switched off his mobile phone.
The officials said by observing dates and names of the villages, booth wise number of votes, transport charges mentioned for outside voters and other details, prima facie it appeared that illegal and black money was routed through unknown and unexplained channels and utilised for the purpose of bribing the voters for gaining undue advantage in the elections.
Further, the expenditure was not informed to the Election Commission. The officials also found that the employees and key persons related to Nova group were deployed to carry out the illegal transactions on behalf of Sambasiva Rao.
“The details regarding the distribution of money in villages such as Duddukuru, Inkollu, Thatiparthivari Palem and Gangavaram coming under Parchur Assembly constituency were recorded in the diary,’’ the officials revealed.
The information was forwarded to Bapatla police, who in turn addressed letters communicating the information about the illegal activities to the I-T, ED and SEBI.
The officials said the flow of money from Nova group into intermediary bank accounts and withdrawal of cash for the apparent illegal activities is being examined.
Key Findings
In polling booth 224, there were 239 voters and for each vote Rs 1,000 was given as inducement. The total money given to booth 224 was shown Rs 2,39,000
One of the entry showed the delegation of work to three employees namely, ‘Apparao/Bujjibabu/Saiganesh’ regarding distributing/bribing money of Rs 15 lakh to the voters of Duddukur village in Parchur Assembly constituency
Rs 3,60,000 was shown to be spent through individuals like ZPTC member Venkat Rao