CONGRESS GETS KNOCKED OFF

Desaraju Surya

Hyderabad: The ruling Congress in Andhra Pradesh has been knocked off the high moral ground it was taking on corruption for the past eight years. 

The arrest of state Excise and Prohibition Minister Mopidevi Venkata Ramana, in connection with the disproportionate assets case against Kadapa MP Y S Jaganmohan Reddy, has left the Kiran Kumar Reddy government shaken. 

There are jitters in the government as well as the Congress party what with some other ministers facing the prospect of arrest over their alleged wrongdoings in relation to the same case. State Home Minister P Sabita Indra Reddy, Roads and Buildings Minister Dharmana Prasada Rao, Information Technology Minister Ponnala Lakshmaiah, Major Industries Minister J Geeta Reddy and Agriculture Minister Kanna Lakshminarayana are also under the CBI scanner in the Jagan case.

The timing of all this couldn’t have been worse for the Congress as it is facing a biggest challenge in the form of by-elections to one Lok Sabha and 18 Assembly seats on June 12.

Mopidevi, a three-time MLA from Guntur district belonging to fishermen community, earned the dubious distinction of being the first incumbent minister to be arrested in the state on charges of corruption. As he reached the CBI's temporary office for a further round of questioning, Mopidevi remained defiant. "I have done no wrong and there is no question of my resignation from the post," he asserted.

But, after the inevitable happened, Mopidevi promptly sent his resignation letter to the Chief Minister through a friend, which was in turn forwarded to the state Governor for approval.

All these years, the Congress had been maintaining that there was nothing amiss in its rule (under Y S Rajasekhara Reddy, K Rosaiah and now Kiran Kumar) even as opposition parties prepared a dossier on the various corruption scandals that rocked the state since May 2004.

Political expediency -- following the exit of Jagan from the party, the subsequent investigation by the CBI into various dubious deals and the findings of CAG -- forced the government as well as the Congress in recent days to acknowledge that certain illicit acts did happen (when YSR was at the helm).

Right from the Chief Minister to the Pradesh Congress Committee president and other leaders (read ministers), however, have been desperately trying to wash their hands off pleading "we are not responsible for what all happened 'behind the curtains.'"

As battle lines are drawn for by-elections in the state, Kiran Kumar and his Cabinet colleagues virtually started endorsing the opposition allegations that the late Chief Minister YSR was primarily responsible for the unbridled corruption and helped his son Jagan amass "thousands of crores of rupees" through dubious means.

Obviously, the Congress' main target was Jagan and his fledgling YSR Congress that has emerged as the biggest political threat to the ruling party.

But the whole thing seems to be turning a full circle and catching even the Congress leaders in the swirl.