The Praja Rajyam president and Tirupati legislator, K. Chiranjeevi, has described as ‘unfair' the arrest of the TDP president, Chandrababu Naidu, and a number of other senior party cadres by the Maharashtra police in connection with their controversial ‘Babli Yatra' on Friday.
Addressing a media conference here on Saturday before rounding-off his two-day visit to Tirumala, Mr. Chiranjeevi however felt that since the Prime Minister has given appointment on July 23 to the leaders of all the political parties from Andhra Pradesh for a discussion on the Babli row, Mr. Naidu could have waited for the outcome and avoided the ‘yatra'.
The PR leader has nonetheless expressed solidarity with the campaign launched by the TDP against alleged unauthorised and arbitrary constructions at the Babli project by the Maharashtra government. On Kadapa MP Y. S. Jaganmohan Reddy's yatra, the PR chief said that Jagan appears to be enjoying the public support going by the crowd he is pulling at all his meetings in course of his yatra.
He did not agree that the Congress high command was trying to use him (Chiranjeevi) as a ‘check' to counter Jagan's overtures to ‘arm-twist' it. It is all your media creation, he said.
On his ‘Tirumala yatra' to petition Lord Venkateswara on the alleged spurt in the scams in the TTD, Mr. Chiranjeevi said the reply given by the Endowments Minister, Gade Venkat Reddy on the floor of the house to the spate of questions raised by the opposition on the alleged TTD scams was ‘not at all satisfactory'. The government has a duty to clear the air when the public, legislators and the media raised certain allegations against the TTD, he said and added that it was to sensitise the public to bring pressure on the government and the TTD to clear the misgivings over its ornaments, sale of arjitham tickets etc that he had to take up his ‘protest trek' . Government should appoint a house-committee to go into all the alleged controversies, he said.
He also reiterated his demand for a probe either by the CBI or by a sitting SC judge into all the TTD affairs..
