The AICC Telangana affairs incharge and Tamil Nadu MP Manickam Tagore on Tuesday slapped Rs 1 crore defamation notice on former Huzurabad Congress leader Padi Kaushik Reddy for levelling bribery charges against him.

Kaushik Reddy was dismissed from Congress on Monday after he addressing a press conference in which he alleged that TPCC chief A Revanth Reddy bribed Rs 50 crore Tagore to secure TPCC chief post.

Kaushik Reddy, who was Congress candidate for Huzurabad seat in 2018 Assembly polls, lost to Etala Rajender, who was then TRS candidate.

After Etala’s ouster from TRS in May this year and Etala’s resignation to Assembly and his subsequent joining in BJP in June this year, Kaushik Reddy is aiming for Congress ticket to fight against Etala in upcoming Huzurabad bypoll.

But after Revanth became TPCC chief on July 26, speculations were rife in Congess circles that Revanth was not in favour of fielding Kaushik Reddy from Huzurabad and instead wants to field former MP Ponnam Prabhakar in his place.

Kaushik meeting TRS working president KTR and also maintaining ‘secret ties’ with TRS leaders have come out in the media. At this stage, a audio clip in which Kaushik Reddy was speaking to Huzurabad TRS youth leader was leaked which went viral on social media on Monday. In the audio, Kaushik Reddy told him that TRS confirmed him ticket for bypoll and asked him to lure all Etala’s supporters into his fold by offering money which he will arrange.

The TPCC disciplinary committee took serious view of this issue and issued show cause notice on Monday. Instead of replying to show cause notice, Kaushik Reddy arranged press meet, tendered resignation to Congress and levelled serious charges against Revanth Reddy and Tagore.

Tagore had earlier sent Rs 1 crore defamation notice to LB Nagar TRS MLA Sudheer Reddy, who defected from Congress to TRS, and accused Tagore of taking R 25 crore bribe from Revanth Reddy to give him TPCC post.

Tagore said the case against Kaushik Reddy was filed in Madurai court and welcome Kaushik Reddy to come to Madurai court to face trial.