GUNTUR: Guntur police on Tuesday registered a case against Andhra Pradesh Assembly Speaker Kodela Siva Prasada Rao and 21 others for the violence that had taken place at polling booth No 160 on the election day on April 11. The cases were registered on a day when Opposition leader YS Jagan Mohan Reddy met Governor ESL Narasimhan and complained about ‘deteriorating’ law and order in AP.
The Speaker, however, said the complaint made by the YSRC against him was false. Six days after the incident, Rajupalem police registered the case against Siva Prasada Rao and 21 others under sections 188, 143, 341, 448, 506 read with 149 IPC and other Acts. The case was registered following a complaint lodged by Sk Imam Vali, a YSRC polling agent of Inumetla where violence broke out.
In the complaint, Vali alleged that Siva Prasada Rao and 21 others intimidated the voters to vote for the TDP. The Speaker, a contestant from the Sattenapalli Assembly constituency, along with his supporter Nara Ramesh and others entered the polling booth and threatened the complainant and four other YSRC agents with dire consequences, the complaint said.
“Fearing that Kodela Siva Prasada Rao and his followers might resort to rigging as they locked themselves in the polling booth for 45 minutes, we requested the presiding officer to send them out so that the voters could exercise their franchise freely. This led to an altercation between YSRC and TDP activists,” according to complaint.