HYDERABAD: With just 10 days left for voting in the
Telangana assembly elections
, a candidate belonging to little known Samajwadi Forward Bloc contesting from Gajwel constituency has gone missing and the Hyderabad high court has directed the police to produce him before it on Tuesday. The development assumes significance as chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao is seeking re-election from Gajwel.
On Monday, Samajwadi Forward Bloc national president Muralidhar Rao filed a petition in the high court stating that his party candidate K Dinesh Chakravarthy filed his nomination papers from Gajwel assembly constituency on Novemebr 22 and has been missing since then. Challa Srinivas Reddy, counsel for the petitioner, told the court that their party was given the 'Truck' symbol after which Dinesh filed his papers on November 22, the last date for filing nominations. "Since then, he has been missing. Surprisingly, even the Election Commission website is showing that no record is available about this candidate from November 23 onwards. Since this is a high profile constituency, we have our own doubts over his disappearance," he said.
According to Jaya Vindhyala, counsel for Samajwadi Forward Bloc, they had plans to contest all the 119 seats in the state but were denied the common symbol 'Truck' midway.
Planned rally on November 24We had to launch a legal battle to secure the symbol for some more people. But in the interregnum, some of our own candidates had to file their papers as independents. Dinesh Chakravarthy had planned a rally on November 24. When he couldn’t be seen in public, we thought he was making arrangements for the rally but soon realized that he is missing,” she said. The bench directed the
Telangana police to produce Dinesh Chakravarthy before the court within 24 hours.