Hyderabad, April 20 (IANS) A ruling Congress party candidate for the Andhra Pradesh assembly in the state's Anantapur district has been arrested by Karnataka police in connection with an attempt to murder case.
T. Prakash Reddy, who is a candidate from the Rapthadu assembly constituency, was arrested by a police team from Bangalore on Sunday. He was taken to Bangalore, where a court sent him to judicial custody.
The arrest of Prakash Reddy has come as a blow to the ruling party at a time when Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy is campaigning in Anantapur district in Rayalaseema region.
The police said Prakash Reddy was an accused in the case in which acid was thrown at a manidentified only as Krishnamurthy in connection with a land dispute. The attack took place in 1997 near Bangalore.
Prakash Reddy, one of the 10 accused in the case, was booked for attempt to murder. Though a Bangalore court declared him a proclaimed offender and issued warrants against him, he had failed to appear before the court.
With the Election Commission directing police to execute all pending arrest warrants, the police sent a team to Anantapur to arrest him.
The Congress candidate's arrest came a day before the chief minister's visit to Rapthadu constituency to campaign for Prakash Reddy, in an area where the Congress is riven by factions.
Local Congress leaders have alleged that his rival Telugu Desam Party (TDP) candidate Paritala Sunita was behind the arrest. Sunita is widow of Paritala Ravi, a former minister who was gunned down by his rivals in Anantapur in 2005.
Prakash Reddy is also one of the accused in the Jubilee Hills bomb blast case of 1996. The bomb attack was carried out on the convoy of Ravi in Hyderabad. While the TDP leader survived, 25 other people in the convoy were killed in the blast.
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