Andhra Pradesh - Vijayawada   

Venkaiah Naidu hits out at State for registering cases against TDP MLAs

Staff Reporter

Says it is an indication of Government's `dangerous mindset'

VIJAYAWADA: Bharatiya Janata Party's former president M. Venkaiah Naidu on Tuesday described the registering of criminal cases against TDP MLAs as an indication of the State Government's `dangerous mindset', which, if not resisted in time, would have `disastrous consequences for parliamentary democracy'.

Addressing a press conference here, Mr. Naidu opined that a handful of officials would not have taken the decision to make complaints against elected representatives and they might have received orders from above. There was a need to probe this angle and fix responsibility. Though the Government had tried to make amends, it could not escape from blame for trying to gag the `voice of people' and it did not matter which party was in the opposition.

Forged documents

Mr. Naidu said that the Government could have referred the issue to the privileges committee of the Assembly, if it believed that the TDP MLAs had produced forged documents during the discussion on the Yellampalli project.

He believed that `political considerations' had clearly played a role in slapping case against the TDP MLAs, which was evident from the manner in which the issue was dealt with. While the Government did not hesitate to withdraw the legal notice it served on CPI (M) leader B.V. Raghavulu for alleging that Rs.1,000 crores had been siphoned off in the irrigation projects, it went to the extent of registering cases against TDP MLAs for what was spoken in the Assembly. On the Telangana issue, Mr. Naidu said that the Congress had initially hoped to bide its time by blaming the BJP for not coming out clearly on the issue. But once BJP president Rajnath Singh declared party's support to the demand for smaller States, the Congress had been pushed into a defensive posture.

He asserted that the BJP had no obligation to write a letter to the Pranab Mukherjee Committee on its stand on the separate State issue, as it was just a party committee.

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