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Vooriki Bewarse
Username: Kushi_ram
Post Number: 4677
Registered: 04-2004
Posted From: 192.62.193.123
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 08, 2005 - 2:11 pm: |    |
Dubious 1st for ‘wealthy’ Naidu
Hyderabad, March 8: Leader of the Opposition N Chan-drababu Naidu will set another record — that of being the first former chief minister of the State to face an official probe on amassing wealth — if Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhar Reddy goes through with his threatened inquiry.
During his Nagarabata programme in Srikakulam on Sunday, the Chief Minister had announced that the State government, which had come across some “useful information” on Naidu’s assets, would take the probe to its “logical end”. Though the Telugu Desam has been nonchalant to Y S Rajasekhar’s announcement, the probe will bring in an era of “vindictive” politics.
“It is not new for Rajasekhar Reddy to raise questions on Naidu’s assets as he has already waged a legal battle in his role as Congress Legislature Party leader and abandoned it midway,” senior TD leader Nagam Janardhan Reddy pointed out. Reddy had filed nine Public Interest Litigations in the High Court in July, 1999. Later, in a move that shocked many — although he himself described it as strategic — YSR withdrew all the cases on December 12, 2000. The allegations against Naidu ranged from abuse of power, corruption and illegal acquisition of assets.
Despite serious political differences, previous chief ministers had never targeted their predecessors so directly. Significantly, Rajasekhar Reddy as a Congress MP had faced a probe on his major source of revenue — Mangampalli Barites — when his differences with then chief minister Kotla Vijayabhaskar Reddy reached a peak.
Naidu, as CM, did attempt to go after YSR by targeting his son, Jagan Mohan Reddy. Naidu tried to implicate Jagan in a suitcase bomb case that was unearthed in Anantapur. The charge was that suitcase bombs were made to target district TD leaders at the behest of Jagan. However, the Naidu government did not take the case beyond the FIR stage.
YSR’s revived talk of a probe into Naidu’s assets is being seen as a fallout of the Leader of the Opposition repeatedly branding the CM a faction leader and attempting to “tarnish” his image in national politics. The TD published a book titled What if a faction leader becomes the Chief Minister of a State and distributed it freely in Delhi’s corridors of powers.
However, YSR’s announcement has not gone down well with his comrades. “Why target Chandrababu Naidu alone? Let the government probe into assets of State-level leaders of all political parties lest it be seen as vindictive,” CPM State secretary B V Raghavulu said.
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