Bathery: The Crime Branch team investigating allegations of a poll bribery case has collected more voice messages.
The messages were collected from the phone of Praseetha Azhikode, the State treasurer of the Janadhipathiya Rashtriya Party (JRP) headed by tribal activist C K Janu.
As per the case Bharatiya Janata Party leadership tried to lure Janu to contest the April 2021 Assembly polls by offering money.
It has been alleged that BJP State president K Surendran had handed over Rs 35 lakh to Janu to make her contest the polls from Sulthan Bathery in Wayanad as the candidate of the National Democratic Alliance. (Janu, who contested the polls, came third behind I C Balakrishnan of the Congress and M S Viswanathan of the CPM.)
The voice message gathered included a purported conversation between Praseetha and Janu, in which the two women were heard discussing the spending of Rs 10 lakh, which Surendran had allegedly given to Janu.
Earlier, Praseetha had made public her conversation with Surendran.
Praseetha said the phone which Janu used to speak to Surendran was handed over to the poll bribery probe team, and the device contained evidence in the case.
Deputy Superintendent of Police R Manoj of the Crime Branch said the probe was in the final stage, and Janu and Praseetha's voice samples were collected again for further testing.
The officer said the statements were yet to be recorded, and added that more people were involved in the case besides Janu and Surendran.