Elvis Stephenson re-nominated to Telangana Assembly

Hyderabad, Jan 7 (IANS) The TRS Government in Telangana on Monday re-nominated Elvis Stephenson as a member of the State Assembly.

At the first meeting of the new cabinet, Chief Minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao decided to re-nominate Stephenson, a member of Anglo-Indian community.

This will enable him to take oath along with the newly-elected MLAs on January 17.

According a statement from the Chief Minister's office, for the first time the Anglo-Indian community representative had been nominated even before the elected MLAs could took oath as members.

Stephenson, 61, was nominated to the Assembly in 2014 after the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) formed first government in the newly created state.

The TRS, which retained power in last month's elections, appears to have rewarded Stephenson for getting a key leader of the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) arrested for offering him a bribe to make him vote for the TDP candidate in Legislative Council elections in 2015.

Revanth Reddy, then leader of TDP, was caught red-handed by the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) when he was offering Rs 50 lakh as bribe to Stephenson, who had lodged a complaint with the anti-graft agency.

The nominated MLA was promised Rs 5 crore to cast his vote.

Later, an audio tape of Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu's alleged telephonic conversation with Stephenson also surfaced. The TRS had alleged that Naidu was the brain behind 'cash-for-vote' scam.