Congress leader loses money while welcoming Meira Kumar

HYDERABAD: A Congress leader, who went to Gandhi Bhavan to meet the party’s presidential candidate Meira Kumar, suffered a rude shock after a thief emptied his pocket and decamped with Rs 80,000 cash on Monday.
Venkatesh Mudiraj, a Congress party leader from Chandrayangutta, had no clue how the money went missing. Mudiraj unsuccessfully contested on a Congress party ticket from Chandrayangutta constituency during the 2009 Assembly elections.
At 12.30 pm on Monday, Venkatesh Mudiraj came to Congress party’s state headquarters, Gandhi Bhavan at Nampally to welcome and meet Meira Kumar.
The former Lok Sabha speaker was in the city as part of her campaign for the presidential elections. “Venkatesh withdrew Rs 82,500 to pay electricity bill in the morning. As he was planning to play the bill, he received a call from a party worker saying that Meira Kumar has already reached Gandhi Bhavan and he rushed to the party headquarters carrying cash in his trousers pocket,” Begum Bazar SI Srinu said.
When Venkatesh was jostling with fellow party workers at the entrance of the party office main building to wish Meira Kumar, an unknown pickpocket stole the cash.
“Venkatesh realised about the theft at around 12.45 pm and after failing to locate the thief, he approached us with a complaint,” the SI said.
Based on the complaint lodged by Venkatesh, police registered a theft case under Section 379 of the IPC. Cops will analyse the CCTV camera footages to zero in on the offender.