The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Hyderabad News : Naidu defends his decision

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Jan 13, 2009
ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

Naidu defends his decision

Special Correspondent

Raju sharing dais with Clinton during his visit to Hyderabad

“At that time Ramalinga Raju was icon of Andhra’s entrepreneurship”
“YSR should be blamed as he has been encouraging scams”

HYDERABAD: Telugu Desam Party president N. Chandrababu Naidu on Monday defended his invitation to former chairman of Satyam B. Ramalinga Raju to share the dais with former US President Bill Clinton during the latter’s visit to the State in 2000.

Speaking at a function marking Swami Vivekanananda’s Jayanti and observed as anti-corruption day, Mr. Naidu who was Chief Minister then, wondered what was wrong in his gesture as Mr. Raju at that time was icon of Andhra’s entrepreneurship.

He expressed surprise at the Chief Minister Y. S. Rajasekhara Reddy’s criticism over this gesture, as if there were series of scandals then.

In fact Dr. Reddy should be blamed for such scams as he had been encouraging this tendency of earning easy money through corrupt practices.

This was clear from giving away all irrigation project contracts to just nine contractors including Maytas to irregularities by Fisheries Department engineer.

He went on to charge the Congress government with influencing Maytas Infra to invest in a Telugu newspaper run by the Chief Minister’s son.

Transparency

Unlike indiscriminate allotment of government land in the name of Special Economic Zones and IT companies now, Mr. Naidu said he never allotted a single acre without proper study of how it would benefit the State. Allotment of land, sanction of projects and calling of tenders for various projects were done with total transparency and nobody pointed out accusing fingers.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Andhra Pradesh