Police searched Kanna's room at Jagan's instance: Cong

The Congress Leaders on Friday lodged a complaint with Chief Electoral Officer Bhanwar Lal that under the Sakshi channel supervision, the Kadapa Town Circle Inspector had conducted a search operation in the hotel room of Housing Minister Kanna Lakshminarayana when the latter was away.

The Minister has been appointed as In-Charge of Kadapa district for supervising the election campaign of Congress candidate for Lok Sabha seat Dr D L Ravindra Reddy.

Taking exception to this search, the Congress Leaders asked the Chief Electoral Officer to take action against the channel which was also giving publicity to YSR Congress candidate in some form or the other.

Mr Bhanwar Lal is understood to have reacted favourably to the Congress delegations’ demand.

 Instances of misuse of Sakshi channel were also brought to the notice of the CEO. The said channel was telecasting advertisements of several varieties of ceiling fans which is the symbol of the YSR Congress Party, the Congress Leaders claimed.

 Vijaya, Khaitan, Orient and other brands of ceiling fans were being shown as Sakshi channel’s commercial advertisements, they said adding that such displays are also against the Election Code. This apart, the Sakshi newspaper carried a big pamphlet with mother and son figuring as part of the election campaign in the constituency, the Congress team says.

The delegation said that the Election Commission has been requested that the channel management be directed not to resort to airing such dubious promotional campaign material.

Congress Leaders Madasu Gangadhar, Rudraraju Padmaraju and others expressed their displeasure over the CEO’s inaction before the media persons while speaking later. They said that the CEO had failed to act on their complaints filed earlier.

After giving a hearing, the CEO had agreed to do the needful, they said.

YSR Congress Party president Y S Jaganmohan Reddy’s scathing criticism of Congress president Sonia Gandhi  was also objected to by the APCC leaders.

They said that Mr Jaganmohan Reddy was crossing his limits and advised that he follow minimum decency and decorum. “Calling her names in unprintable language was uncalled for,” they said.