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Wednesday, Dec 24, 2008
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Telugu Desam to sue ‘tainted’ Ministers

Special Correspondent

Party leaders find Lok Ayukta’s silence over Fisheries scandal fishy

HYDERABAD: Telugu Desam Party on Tuesday called for a boycott of public functions attended by six Ministers who are allegedly involved in the irregularities committed by the Fisheries department, executive engineer, V. Suryanarayana.

Addressing a press conference, TDP leaders, K. Vijayarama Rao, P. Chandrasekhar and P. Yadagiri said the party has also decided to file corruption cases against the Ministers and other officials involved in the “multicrore scam”, in police stations, Anti-Corruption Bureau offices and local courts in the 14 districts where the misappropriation have come to light.

They also expressed surprise at the way the anti-corruption institution of Lok Ayukta was maintaining silence instead of suo motu taking up this “fit case”. The ACB too was confining itself to Mr. Suryanarayana and not doing the necessary follow-up, by probing the role played by the Ministers and other officers. This could be because it might have got “go slow” instruction from the top during a recent review after the arrest of Mr. Suryanarayana.

As was the case with earlier instance of corruption in irrigation projects, Volkswagen deal, Outer Ring Road and indiscriminate sale of government land, the government was not keen in pursuing the present case to its logical end. All it has done is merely appoint a judicial inquiry headed by a retired judge with the Chief Minister himself setting its agenda of giving a clean chit to the guilty.

Refuting Congress leaders’ charge that it was during TDP rule that it all began with the issue of GO 34 allowing sale of uneconomical fish seed farms, they said the entire issue had been distorted. Though the GO was issued in May 2001, it was subsequently cancelled. But after Congress came to power, the sale was revived through a GO on August 18, 2004 signed by the then Principal Secretary, P. Ramakanth Reddy, making Mr. Suryanarayana a member of the committee to oversee the sale.

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