The A.P. High Court's order setting two key investigating agencies -- the CBI and the Enforcement Directorate -- and the market regulator, Securities & Exchanges Board of India (SEBI), after former Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu is clearly a political setback for him.
This development came in the midst of the TDP president's ‘Rythu Poru Bata', a vigorous and determined effort by him through padayatras, to rejuvenate the party after the rebellion by a section of Telangana leaders. He had met with some success last week when he forayed into Khammam and Nalgonda districts without encountering protests from TRS activists.
Just ten weeks ago, Mr. Naidu had declared with a bit of fanfare his personal assets in an attempt to show he had nothing to hide and that he acquired all his assets through legal means. He said he wanted to set an example to other politicians by revealing his family's wealth totalling Rs.37.55 crore, most of which belonged to his wife N. Bhuvaneswari.
Besides, TDP leaders impleaded themselves in the case against Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy which led to the High Court ordering a CBI inquiry against the Kadapa MP. The TDP took full credit for Mr. Jaganmohan Reddy's discomfiture. As in Mr. Naidu's case, the YSR Congress leader was in the midst of the ‘Odarpu yatra' when the bad news came in.
In fact, Mr. Naidu and his partymen have consistently attacked the late YSR and his associates. They brought out a book called “The Raja of Corruption”, thoroughly documenting all lapses of the late Chief Minister and, subsequently, another one titled, “The Mining Mafia”. All these helped the TDP to take a high moral ground on the issue of corruption, so much so that Mr. Naidu sat on a day's token fast to express solidarity with the anti-corruption crusader Anna Hazare during the latter's hunger strike in August.
Interestingly, the petitioner, Ms. Vijayamma, who is honorary president of YSR Congress, has levelled allegations that are similar to those that the TDP itself laid against her husband, the late YSR – ‘quid pro quo' in the government doling out largesse to individuals and institutions in return for pecuniary gains.
The CBI's mandate is to report whether the 187 documents furnished by Ms. Vijayamma are sufficient to show there was a prima facie case against Mr. Naidu. She alleged that the TDP president committed offences under the Prevention of Corruption Act, Prevention of Money Laundering Act, Indian Penal Code, Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA), Representation of the People Act, A.P. Land Grabbing Act and the Benami Transaction (Prohibition) Act.
The role of the Enforcement Directorate will be to investigate into the allegation that nearly 100 companies, “most of which were sham” were used as “conduits for passing of hawala money”.
