The Andhra Pradesh Congress Committee on Friday issued what it called a charge sheet jointly to the BJP and its political ally in the State, the Telugu Desam Party (TDP), for indulging in large-scale corruption and for deceiving the people by wilfully not fulfilling the promises they made to them at the time of elections.
PCC president N. Raghuveera Reddy, Rajya Sabha member K.V.P. Ramachandra Rao, former Union Ministers M. M. Pallam Raju, Panabaka Lakshmi, Kotla Suryaprakash Reddy, former Minister S. Sailajanath and several party leaders were present at the release of the ‘charge sheet’ to the media at Andhra Ratna Bhavan here.
‘Hard evidence’
Giving details, Mr. Raghuveera Reddy alleged that Telugu Desam leaders and cadres earned to the tune of ₹29,000 crore from 405 sand reaches in the State. He claimed that Congress teams had visited all the 400-odd sand reaches in the State and distributed to the media a list with the name of the sand reach and cubic metres of sand that was quarried from them.
The PCC leader said that his party was not indulging in flippant allegations and that it had hard evidence needed to back up the claims. “Just 15 items have been covered in the 12-page charge sheet,” he said. The quantum of corruption in the irrigation projects too had been quantified. This was evident in the enhancement of the cost of the different projects. While the cumulative cost of constructing Polavaram, Handri-Neeva, Galeru-Nagari, Vamsadara, Gundlakamma, Telugu Ganga and Veligodu was ₹34,057 crore according to the 2014 estimates, the TDP enhanced it to ₹74,154 crore in a matter of two years (2016 estimates). Such a huge increase in estimates was not rational and there was bound to be corruption in it, he alleged. None of the 600 promises made to the people at the time of elections had been fulfilled. As many as 124 of these promises were extended to various communities but not fulfilled. The communities that tried to remind the TDP of the respective promises, were being branded casteist by the ruling party leaders, Mr. Raghuveera Reddy said.
