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Journalism of Courage
Defying heavy police deployment and Section 144 of CrPC prohibiting the assembly of people, the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) workers and supporters held demonstrations in different parts of the YSRCP-ruled Andhra Pradesh as part of the statewide bandh called by the TDP to protest the arrest of party supremo and ex-chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu.
However, an unprecedented crackdown by the administration and police on the TDP rank and file has prevented their protests from snowballing as a slew of its leaders were taken into preventive custody. The police rounded up protesters across the state and took them to police stations.
Naidu was arrested by the state CID from Nandyal early on Saturday in connection with the multi-crore AP State Skill Development Corporation scam allegedly involving his government’s tenure during 2014-19. An Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) court in Vijayawada sent Naidu to 14-day judicial custody on Sunday evening. He was shifted to Rajahmundry Central Jail, 200 km from Vijayawada, after the court order.
The TDP chief’s arrest has heated up Andhra politics months before the Assembly polls and Lok Sabha elections, with the party calling it “political vendetta” unleashed by the state government led by YSRCP supremo and Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy. Naidu has repeatedly been locking horns with Jagan on various issues in recent months.
On Sunday night, the TDP had given a call for the Monday bandh, with its state president K Atchannaidu calling upon party activists all over the state to oppose Naidu’s arrest. “This arrest is illegal and politically motivated. Those who support democracy should come out to protest and make the bandh successful,’’ he said.
However, as a large number of state and district-level TDP leaders have been kept under house arrest by the police, the party has not been able to organise the protests on a mass scale so far. All 21 TDP MLAs have been put under house arrest with large police contingents stationed outside their houses to prevent them from leaving home.
The police commissioners in the cities and the superintendents in the districts have banned rallies and processions, deploying massive police across the state to curb demonstrations. The biggest protest was reported from Naidu’s home turf Kuppam – the constituency from where he has been elected continuously since 1989.
Observing bandh Monday, the TDP activists blocked roads and set tyres on fire, but were later arrested by the police. Protests were held at various state transport buses facilities as the TDP workers tried to prevent buses from leaving. The police made arrests in Visakhapatnam, Vizianagaram, Tirupati, Anantapur, Guntur, and other places. Among those arrested at various places were many women TDP members.
At several places, the supporters of the Jana Sena Party (JSP) also took to streets to hold protests. JSP chief K Pawan Kalyan has condemned Naidu’s arrest, calling it “politically motivated”.
The Jagan government has also gone on a public communications drive over the matter, with its six ministers and two ex-ministers holding back-to-back press conferences to detail and justify the case against Naidu. The ministers – including Ambati Rambabu (Water Resources), R K Roja (Tourism, Culture and Youth Advancement), Seediri Appala Raju (Animal Husbandry, Dairy Development and Fisheries), K Govardhan Reddy (Agriculture and Cooperation, Marketing, Food Processing), Peddireddy Ramachandra Reddy (Energy, Forest, Environment, Science and Technology; Mines and Geology) and Botsa Satyanarayana (Education) – would hold media conferences through the day in this regard.
Senior TDP leader Yanamala Rama Krishnudu charged that the party leaders’ house arrest and crackdown on protesters amounted to a “total failure to uphold democratic principles” in the state. “At least IAS and IPS officers who are supposed to uphold democratic values should not participate in this. The way a 73-year-old leader (Naidu) who has a name world over is being ill treated is shameful and condemnable. If anything happens to Chandrababu Naidu while he is in police custody or jail, Chief Minister Jagan Mohan Reddy and YSRCP will be responsible,” Krishnudu said.
“If a political party behaves in this manner, and the kind of police action and failure to uphold basic democratic principles we are seeing, who will invest in this state? By creating this situation, Jagan Mohan Reddy is depriving the state of any investments, which would affect youth who would find no jobs,” he claimed.
Pawan Kalyan also said that the police action preventing peaceful protests and locking up leaders was against democracy. “People protest when they see injustice but this kind of crackdown on people and their leaders is condemnable,” he said.
Meanwhile, the state CID is also seeking to interrogate Naidu over alleged irregularities in the construction of the Amaravati capital city’s inner ring road during the TDP regime. The Jagan government claims that Naidu allegedly rejigged the original design of the inner ring road to increase the value of lands owned by the TDP leaders there.
The CID had registered an FIR in the Amaravati road case in 2020. Sources said the agency is seeking a PT (prisoner on transit) warrant to question Naidu in this case. The CID has filed a petition in the ACB court seeking five days custody of Naidu. Naidu’s lawyers have filed a petition seeking to keep him under house arrest rather than in jail. These petitions would come up in the ACB court Monday.
According to the CID, Naidu is the prime accused in the alleged AP Skill Development Corporation scam involving Rs 371 crore of government fund, which was allegedly transferred to shell companies. The CID submitted in its remand report that Naidu had “indulged in a criminal conspiracy with the intention of fraudulent misappropriation or otherwise conversion of government funds for his own use, disposal of property which was under the control of a public servant, besides engaging in cheating, forging documents and destroying evidence”.
The CID stated in its report that the Naidu government allocated Rs 371 crore for setting up skill development clusters for unemployed youth across the state after signing a Memorandum of Understanding with Siemens, but a significant portion of the fund was diverted to shell companies linked to some Siemens employees and the Skill Development Corporation employees. The money was then withdrawn and Naidu was the alleged ultimate beneficiary of this scam, the agency charged.
CID Additional DG N Sanjay said their investigation implicated Naidu along with the TDP as alleged beneficiaries of the misappropriated funds. The CID’s remand report Sunday said that to ascertain where the misappropriated money is parked, it was necessary to question Naidu, seeking his custody for 15 days. The court however sent him to judicial custody.
Meanwhile, the ACB court has posted for Tuesday Naidu’s plea that he should be kept under house arrest rather than in jail. The arguments made by Naidu’s lawyers and the CID on the matter were completed Monday.
