Desaraju Surya
Hyderabad: Telugu Desam Party president N Chandrababu Naidu has landed in an embarrassing position.
The Congress has strategically pushed him into this situation by “exposing” his “dubious” deeds and also by digging into his past to “pay Chandrababu back in his own coin.”
As the TDP chief has made corruption the prime weapon of his attack on Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy, the ruling party too has pulled out the same weapon from its arsenal for a befitting retribution.
For now, Chandrababu has literally been caught in a defensive position as the calculated assault by the Congress is proving too good for him to handle.
A report on the alleged fraudulent practices adopted by Heritage Foods, a firm promoted by Chandrababu and his family, to “siphon off” public funds has caught the principal opposition leader in an awkward position even as he sought to drag his bete noire Rajasekhara Reddy into the Satyam Computers-Ramalinga Raju scandal.
Sakshi, the Telugu newspaper promoted by the Chief Minister’s son Y S Jaganmohan Reddy, has gone to town with a report that Heritage Foods cooked up “non-existent” profits of Rs 94 lakh and also transferred prime land worth Rs 100 crore to a fictitious company for a meager Rs 2.73 crore. Also, the newspaper reported that Heritage Foods sold a 51 per cent stake at Rs 174.99 per share to one Sri Chakra Merchandising Private Limited of Tamil Nadu when in fact the latter had just Rs 32,000 in hand. This was done in an alleged attempt to cover up the losses of Heritage Foods.
The newspaper also reported, with documentary evidence, that Heritage Infra Developers Limited, a so-called subsidiary of Heritage Foods, obtained a loan of Rs 45 crore from one Sicom Limited of Mumbai but now Heritage Infra no longer exists.
Equating the “Heritage Scandal” with that of Satyam Computers, Congress MP Undavalli Arun Kumar petitioned the Union Minister for Corporate Affairs Prem Chand Gupta to institute an enquiry into the Heritage affairs.
The Heritage episode apart, the Congress has also dug out an old publication of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) – now an ally of the TDP – wherein the “gross high-level corruption” in the then Chandrababu Naidu administration was brought out in vivid detail. The CPM published the booklet in September 2003 listing the various scandals that rocked Andhra Pradesh under Chandrababu. The CPM then alleged that as much as a staggering Rs 22,000 crore of public funds were swindled under various schemes, including the Food-for-Work, fake stamp papers scandal, World Bank-aided projects, etc.
The Youth Congress got the booklet reprinted and started distributing it to “expose” both the TDP as well as the CPM, which had now re-aligned.
So far, Chandrababu has not opened his mouth to clarify the actual position related to his Heritage businesses. The common refrain of senior TDP leaders has been that “let the government conduct a probe since they are in power.” In fact, the TDP leaders were seeking to brush aside the Heritage scandal reports saying the newspaper did not have any credibility and was known for its TDP-bashing.
Internally, however, there is said to be a lot of anxiety within the TDP over the fallout of the report as well as the circulation of the CPM booklet.
Hyderabad: Telugu Desam Party president N Chandrababu Naidu has landed in an embarrassing position.
The Congress has strategically pushed him into this situation by “exposing” his “dubious” deeds and also by digging into his past to “pay Chandrababu back in his own coin.”
As the TDP chief has made corruption the prime weapon of his attack on Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy, the ruling party too has pulled out the same weapon from its arsenal for a befitting retribution.
For now, Chandrababu has literally been caught in a defensive position as the calculated assault by the Congress is proving too good for him to handle.
A report on the alleged fraudulent practices adopted by Heritage Foods, a firm promoted by Chandrababu and his family, to “siphon off” public funds has caught the principal opposition leader in an awkward position even as he sought to drag his bete noire Rajasekhara Reddy into the Satyam Computers-Ramalinga Raju scandal.
Sakshi, the Telugu newspaper promoted by the Chief Minister’s son Y S Jaganmohan Reddy, has gone to town with a report that Heritage Foods cooked up “non-existent” profits of Rs 94 lakh and also transferred prime land worth Rs 100 crore to a fictitious company for a meager Rs 2.73 crore. Also, the newspaper reported that Heritage Foods sold a 51 per cent stake at Rs 174.99 per share to one Sri Chakra Merchandising Private Limited of Tamil Nadu when in fact the latter had just Rs 32,000 in hand. This was done in an alleged attempt to cover up the losses of Heritage Foods.
The newspaper also reported, with documentary evidence, that Heritage Infra Developers Limited, a so-called subsidiary of Heritage Foods, obtained a loan of Rs 45 crore from one Sicom Limited of Mumbai but now Heritage Infra no longer exists.
Equating the “Heritage Scandal” with that of Satyam Computers, Congress MP Undavalli Arun Kumar petitioned the Union Minister for Corporate Affairs Prem Chand Gupta to institute an enquiry into the Heritage affairs.
The Heritage episode apart, the Congress has also dug out an old publication of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) – now an ally of the TDP – wherein the “gross high-level corruption” in the then Chandrababu Naidu administration was brought out in vivid detail. The CPM published the booklet in September 2003 listing the various scandals that rocked Andhra Pradesh under Chandrababu. The CPM then alleged that as much as a staggering Rs 22,000 crore of public funds were swindled under various schemes, including the Food-for-Work, fake stamp papers scandal, World Bank-aided projects, etc.
The Youth Congress got the booklet reprinted and started distributing it to “expose” both the TDP as well as the CPM, which had now re-aligned.
So far, Chandrababu has not opened his mouth to clarify the actual position related to his Heritage businesses. The common refrain of senior TDP leaders has been that “let the government conduct a probe since they are in power.” In fact, the TDP leaders were seeking to brush aside the Heritage scandal reports saying the newspaper did not have any credibility and was known for its TDP-bashing.
Internally, however, there is said to be a lot of anxiety within the TDP over the fallout of the report as well as the circulation of the CPM booklet.
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