A CBI team reached Pulivendula early this morning and arrested Bhaskar Reddy from his residence. He was then brought to Hyderabad and produced before the CBI judge.
Prior to that he was taken to Osmania hospital for his medical check up. The probe agency is likely to seek Bhaskar Reddy’s custody tomorrow by filing a petition in the CBI court at Nampally.
YS Vivekananda Reddy, a former MP, had been found dead in his home at Pulivendula, the ancestral place of the family with stab wounds in March 2019, just before the Lok Sabha elections.
Dissatisfied with the investigations by the Andhra Pradesh police under her cousin YS Jagan Mohan Reddy the daughter of Vivekananda Reddy approached court. The Supreme Court handed over the case to the CBI last year. The murder victim was the younger brother of YS Rajasekhar Reddy, the father of the current chief minister.
According to the CBI, Avinash Reddy and Bhaskar Reddy plotted the murder of Vivekanand Reddy since he was opposed to giving the ticket for Kadapa seat to Avinash Reddy who had won the same seat in 2014. He wanted the seat to go to either YS Sharmila or YS Vijayamma, the Chief Minister’s sister and mother, respectively.
Although Bhaskar Reddy was the cousin of Vivekananda Reddy, there was plenty of bad blood between them over dominating the politics in Kadapa. In 2017, Vivekananda Reddy was defeated in the MLC elections in Kadapa as YSRCP candidate allegedly because of the father-son duo who were unhappy because they wanted the ticket to go to the candidate of their choice.
However, Avinash Reddy alleged that the CBI was not considering the information given by them. He blamed Vivekananda Reddy’s son-in-law for the murder and alleged that stamp papers went missing from the house when the murder took place.
Following the arrest, Avinash Reddy’s followers took out a protest rally at Pulivendula wearing black badges and shops downed their shutters.