Telangana Congress Chief Accuses KCR, KTR Of Tapping Party Leaders' Phones

Telangana Congress chief Mahesh Kumar Goud said former chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao and his son KT Rama Rao were responsible for tapping the phones of hundreds of Congress leaders, including his own. He suspected the Congress tally fell from the expected 90 to 63 in the November 2023 elections because KCR and the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) used political intelligence gathered illegally against them.

BRS working president KT Rama Rao has served a legal notice to Mr Goud, alleging that the state Congress chief was making serious allegations without any proof and demanded an unconditional apology.

KTR accused the Congress government of bringing up the phone tapping issue without any evidence, merely to deflect public attention from its inability to fulfill any of its guarantees since coming to power.

The BRS leader said that as a law-abiding citizen, he has cooperated with inquiries into politically motivated cases filed against him. He warned that if the Congress continues to resort to such "irresponsible political stunts", the BRS cadre would not remain silent.

Earlier in the day, Mr Goud had recorded his statement before a Special Investigation Team, in which he said he had suspected his phone was tapped for years now. "Not just my phone, the phone of then PCC chief Revanth Reddy and some 650 others was tapped. Not only that, they destroyed all the recorded material except for a few hard disks from the last few days," he said.

"This has never happened in the history of the country that the phones of political leaders, judges, journalists, celebrities and even businessmen were tapped and the information was used illegally," Mr Goud said.

"Besides, every two months, the chief secretary along with DGP, home secretary, is supposed to review phone tapping cases. How come this continued for 2.5 years and no one reviewed?" he asked.