Hyderabad: BRS MLA Padi Kaushik Reddy has claimed that Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy instructed at least three Congress Members of Parliament to vote in favour of the NDA’s Vice-Presidential candidate, CP Radhakrishnan.
Kaushik Reddy said these three MPs admitted to him that they followed orders from Revanth Reddy. He further alleged that in total, 15 Congress MPs showed cross-voting behaviour—and that all eight Congress MPs from Telangana were among them. “They even asked me to hold a press meet and disclose this to everyone,” he stated. He accused Revanth Reddy of betraying the INDIA bloc and questioned where the 15 missing votes went, pointing to the difference between the expected count of 315 and the actual 300 votes for B. Sudershan Reddy.
The numbers from the poll show that out of 781 eligible MPs, 767 cast ballots, with 752 valid. CP Radhakrishnan secured 452 votes while Sudershan Reddy got 300. The discrepancy has sparked suspicion that some opposition MPs either voted against their bloc or intentionally invalidated their ballots.
Congress leaders have reacted with concern, viewing the allegations as deeply serious. Manish Tewari demanded that each constituent party of the opposition alliance investigate what he called “a serious breach of trust.”
The ruling NDA has welcomed what they frame as evidence of MPs voting according to conscience. Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju publicly thanked “friendly MPs” from the INDIA bloc for supporting the NDA candidate, suggesting internal fissures within the opposition.
