The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : Telugu Desam cries foul

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Nov 25, 2004

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

Telugu Desam cries foul

By Our Special Correspondent

HYDERABAD, NOV. 24. The Telugu Desam on Wednesday accused the Chief Minister, Y. S. Rajasekhara Reddy, of showing `special affection' towards the nine companies that were pre-qualified for taking up irrigation projects.

Addressing a press conference, party leaders -- M. V. Mysoora Reddy, Ummareddi Venkateswarlu, S. Maruthi and G. Prabhakar, former Chief Engineer who joined the party on Wednesday -- wanted all Congressmen opposed to the method adopted by the Government in finalising tenders to write to the AICC president, Sonia Gandhi.

They charged Dr. Reddy with misleading people by using every available forum, including the Commonwealth Parliamentary Conference, to refer to his grandiose irrigation projects and conveniently skipping damning remarks made by the High Court.

`Relax norms'

They said the decision of the Government to fix a short week's time for filing of tenders through the fresh notification, was again leading to suspicion that it was keen on passing on the contracts to the same nine companies. "The Government should show its impartiality by extending the time and relaxing the norms to facilitate more number of companies to participate in the process. It should also take steps to see that the contractors do not form syndicates again."

They said the party would take it to people. "All this shows that he has no respect for the Constitution, the Courts, Opposition, his party's MLAs and MPs."

Dr. Mysoora Reddy said it was not his party that had dragged Pulichintala and the tender process to the Court. In the case of Pulichintala, the Chief Minister and the Irrigation Advisor, Sitapathi should take the blame as they dismissed the former Chief Engineer, Venkat Reddy's alternate proposals of building mini reservoirs, forcing him to approach the Court. In the case of tender process too, he alleged that the Congress MLAs were behind the petitioner.

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