Without notice or warrant, ACB officials arrested Atchannaidu: Rammohan Naidu

Amaravati: The arrest of TDLP Deputy Leader K. Atchannaidu by the ACB officials without giving prior notices was highly condemnable, said TDP MP Kinjarapu Rammohan Naidu in a statement on Friday.

"Atchannaidu was an MLA with a long political track record. He is wrongly implicated in false cases in the alleged scam in purchase of medicines and appliances in the ESI. Actually, the ESI Telehealth services programme was initiated in AP when Atchannaidu was Minister for Labour. The programme was launched as part of a national level initiative begun by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi at that time".

"In Telangana, a similar corruption scam came up but a director-level official was arrested there but not the Minister concerned. From the beginning, the YS Jagan Mohan Reddy Government was harassing political rivals with false cases. Atchannaidu played an active role in exposing the Government's multi-crore scams in the sand, liquor, cement, Coronavirus kits and bleaching powder. Now, the YSRCP was afraid of facing the TDP onslaught on these scams in the coming Assembly session. All the 151 MLAs of the YSRCP knew they were not a match for Atchannaidu in the Assembly debates. This is why they resorted to his kidnap and arrest just a few days ahead of the budget session", he opined.

"Chief Minister Jagan has been personally hatching a conspiracy against the Atchannaidu family. Especially, the CM was frustrated over the strong criticism from Atchannaidu on the Government's scams. Why is the latest action initiated? Atchannaidu has already clarified about the ESI activities at a press conference. He is not a terrorist, nor a criminal for hundreds of policemen making a flash raid to arrest him", explained Rammohan Naidu.

The TDP MP further stated that many States took part in telehealth services. It was AP alone which bought the medicines at a lower price compared to other states in the ESI telehealth services programme. Despite this, false information was being spread. In his capacity as the Minister only, Atchannaidu took some decisions as per the instructions of the Central government, but he had nothing to do with the alleged corruption, said Rammohan Naidu.