Kanugolu Under Scanner, Congress Poll Strategist's Offices in Hyderabad Raided

Congress party has slammed the Telangana government over raids on poll strategist Sunil Kanugolu in Hyderabad.

As the election buzz begins to wash over the coastal town of Karnataka, ahead of the 2023 assembly elections, the Congress party has handed the responsibility of strategising for their party in the state to Sunil Kanugolu, chief of Hyderabad-based Mindshare Analytics.

(Photo altered by The Quint)

The Telangana police in Hyderabad have carried out raids on Congress's key poll strategist Sunil Kanugolu on 13 December, 2022.

While the police have asserted that the raids were based on five individual complaints that they received recently, the Congress has accused the K Chandrashekhar Rao led Telangana government of political vendetta and has slammed the police for acting against democratic principles of the nation.

Why did Hyderabad Police Raid Kanugolu's Offices?

The cyber crimes police in Hyderabad conducted raids on Sunil Kanugolu's offices and has arrested three people for allegedly making derogatory posts and objectionable remarks against chief minister K Chandrashekhar Rao on social media platforms.

The Reason: The police acted against Kanugolu and his team as they received five complaints, stating that misinformation and derogatory comments were being posted from IP addresses originating from Kanugolu’s office.

So, What did the Police Seize?

• 10 mobile phones

• Laptops

• Other digital equipment

In an interaction with the reporters in Hyderabad, Cyber Crimes Assistant Commissioner of Police K V M Prasad said, "We are taking action as per the complaint we received. We have come to understand that Kanugolu's team was masking IP addresses and using fake IPs to post the objectionable content. However, we were able to track it down to this office in Madhapur."

Congress Cries Foul

Expressing anger over the recent developments, Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee chief and Member of Parliament from Malkajgiri, Revenath Reddy has condemned the raid and has lashed out at CM KCR.

In its response, Revanth Reddy said:

• Telangana Rashtra Samithi is throttling democracy.

• Action against Kanugolu is nothing but vendetta politics.

• KCR is government wants to hide its failures and accusations of corruption.

• We urge the party workers to burn effigies of KCR.

• We want all the party workers to stage protests at the mandal (taluk) level.

Condemning the action taken against Kanugolu, general secretary of Congress KC Venugopal also tweeted,

"It is (raids) aimed at defunctioning @INCTelangana war room which is at full swing .Come what may, we will continue our crusade against corruption by Telangana CM & his family."

Meanwhile, MP Manickam Tagore, who is also the in-charge of Telangana Congress raised the matter in Lok Sabha and accused the Telangana police of forcibly entering Congress war room in Hyderabad.

He also claimed that police had no search warrant, no notice under 41A CrPC given, and that it had violated of SC judgment in DK Basu case.

Who is Sunil Kanugolu?

Sunil Kanugolu is political strategist and a poll analyst, who has worked for: DMK, AIADMK and the BJP, in the past, along with Prashant Kishore and his team.

He is a former head of the Association of Brilliant Minds (ABM) — the BJP’s personalised campaign organisation, and at present he is consulting for the Indian National Congress.

Under the aegis of Mindshare Analystics and Inclusive Minds, Kanugolu is managing the Congress's campaign for assembly elections in Karnataka, Telangana.

Some of the other campaigns that Kanugolu led are:

• PayCM Campaign

• Namakku Naame

• Bharat Jodo Yatra