India News | EC Norms: Union Minister, T'gana Minister, MP, Others Booked

Hyderabad, Apr 14 (PTI): Cases were registered against a Union Minister of State for Home, a Telangana Minister, a Congress MP and other political leaders for allegedly violating the convoy guidelines while campaigning for a by- election, police said on Wednesday.

The bypoll is to Nagarjuna Sagar Assembly constituency in Nalgonda district of Telangana.

Cases were booked against Kishan Reddy, G Jagadish Reddy and A Revanth Reddy and others for violating the Election Commission's norms on the number of vehicles permitted in a convoy during the COVID-19 pandemic, the police said.

As per the guidelines, only five vehicles were permitted in the convoy other than the security vehicles, said a senior police official.

Instead, there were more vehicles, he said.

"We collected video footage and it was found that the vehicles were more in numbers, hence, we booked the cases," Nalgonda District Superintendent of Police A V Ranganath said.

The senior police official further said they registered cases against TRS candidate Nomula Bhagat and BJP candidate P Ravi Kumar Naik, too, for not abiding by the COVID-19 norms.

Also, there were several cases of violation ofmodel code of conduct (MCC)and non-adherence to the COVID-19 guidelines as the political leaders did not wear masks, the police said. The Nagarjuna Sagar Assembly constituency bypoll is scheduled on April 17.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)