Ponguleti Srinivasa Reddy.
Credit: X/@mpponguleti
Hyderabad: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Friday raided multiple premises linked to Telangana revenue minister P Srinivasa Reddy as part of a money laundering case linked to an alleged smuggling racket.
Searches were conducted at five locations in Hyderabad and Khammam belonging to him. Special teams flown from Delhi had conducted these searches.
Srinivas Reddy was a civil contractor before joining politics, and his family continues in the construction business. ED searches were conducted under CRPF cover.
Srinivas Reddy is regarded as one of the wealthy leaders within the Congress party in Telangana, and he was also responsible for 'Operation Akarsh', which is aimed to lure opposition MLAs into the party. Until now, around 10 BRS MLAs joined Congress in the last few months.
Sources in ED said that the raids were linked to a case registered by DRI and customs department in February this year over a suspected hawala transaction of around Rs 100 crore through cryptocurrency in the purchase of luxury watches each worth more than Rs two crore allegedly by Srinivas Reddy's son Harsha Reddy. These watches were smuggled from Hong Kong Via Singapore. It is learnt that ED found some links with Harsha Reddy's construction business and raised the premises linked to the minister.
Congress termed ED raids on Srinivas Reddy a conspiracy and plot to intimidate leaders in the state government and undermine their morale.
Telangana PCC general secretary, Addanki Dayakar, has drawn parallels to ED raids on minister D K Shivakumar in Karnataka in the past, and said it has not caused any damage to the Congress government there.
Firms linked to the family of Srinivas Reddy had in the past had bagged many government work on irrigation projects. He was also raided before general elections.