Chandrababu Naidu terms Narayana arrest 'witch hunting'

Vijayawada: TDP national president N Chandrababu Naidu on Tuesday condemned the arrest of former minister P Narayana, a renowned educationist, by the state CID and called it an unwarranted political arrest.

The former chief minister said the YSRCP government had been targeting Narayana for quite some time and Tuesday's arrest was the culmination of such efforts. The charge that Narayana was an accused in the SSC examination papers leak case was ridiculous, he said adding the he had ushered in an excellent competitive education system in the country and his institutions had become the pride of the nation

If at all the question paper leak could be attributed to the government failure and the Chief Minister and his own Cabinet colleagues had differed on the issue by giving contradictory statements. The arrest was a part of witch hunting by the state government, he said.

TDP national general secretary Nara Lokesh in a statement accused the state government of practising vendetta politics in the arrest of former minister. In a statement here, he said the government was desperately trying to cover up its failures by acting against the TDP leaders. The arrest of Narayana too was on similar lines as the government failed to conduct the Class 10 examinations in a fool-proof manner. The reported question paper leakages occurred on the WhatsApp groups of the YSRCP leaders and yet, the government had sought to act against the Narayana group of institutions and its lecturers and management.

It had become a regular practice for the ruling party leaders to commit offences and then pin the blame on the Opposition.

He recalled how education minister Botcha Satyanarayana and the Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy had made contradictory statements over the paper leak scam. The minister had changed his statement on the issue. He said it was 'atrocious' that the government was arresting the TDP leaders while not acting against the guilty.

By protecting the offenders and harassing the innocent, the YSRCP regime had been deriving sadistic pleasure, he said adding such an effort to divert the attention of the people from its scams and frauds would not convince people of its innocence.