Act against Jagan, his aide Vijayasai

Vijayawada: Political situation in Andhra Pradesh seems to be hotting up six months ahead of Assembly and Lok Sabha elections. Whether it is a posturing or political ploy, the saffron party leader in the state is queering the pitch for the Jagan Mohan Reddy government. It may also be to prevent the opposition parties from deriving any advantage. Political circles are agog with speculations as to the strategy of BJP state president D Purandeswari as she took on both Chief Minister of AP YS Jagan Mohan Reddy and his confidante Rajya Sabha MP Vijayasai Reddy.

She shot off a letter to the Chief Justice of India, drawing his attention to inordinate delay in CBI and ED cases against Jagan Mohan Reddy.

She also complained against alleged misuse of power and violation of bail conditions by Rajya Sabha MP Vijaysai Reddy who has been out on bail for the last 10 years.

In her letter, she alleged that both the YSRCP leaders exploited all procedural gaps in the judicial system and were managing repeated adjournments and nonappearance, thus preventing delivery of justice in every case filed against them by probe agencies.

Listing out the details of charges against Vijayasai Reddy, she said they were mind-boggling: 11 charges relate to cheating and dishonesty, inducing delivery of property, 11 relate to criminal conspiracy, 6 relate to forgery for purpose of cheating, two are charges of criminal breach of trust by public servant, two relate to charges of forging document or electronic record and one is for falsification of accounts. She said this shows the “manipulative abilities” in many cases.

Purandeswari said that Vijayasai Reddy and Jagan Mohan Reddy were granted bail by a special court in April 2012. The CBI had termed Vijaysai Reddy as the “kingpin” in the case. The court she said had imposed certain conditions at the time of granting bail, but they were being violated.

The BJP state president said that when she wrote letters to the Union Home Minister to investigate the AP liquor scam when she found that he operates a few distilleries through his benamis, he threatened several people including several businessmen and realtors, collected money for himself and party by using “goons” from Kadapa and Visakhapatnam and bought acres of valuable land for his family members including daughter and son-in-law’s companies at throwaway price. She said she was being threatened by him, saying: “I would not be ever able to come in public life with the so-called information he has on me when made public.”

She said a land whose value was Rs 177 crore was bought for Rs 57 crore. She also referred to the incident where CBI had to return empty handed as AP police did not cooperate in the probe into the role of his relative YS Avinash Reddy in the murder case of Y S Vivekananda Reddy.

Seeking immediate intervention of the apex court to save democracy, she said people were losing faith in the judicial system as such influential people were on bail using loopholes in the system for over 10 years. She urged the CJI to bring closure in all these cases in the next six months by immediate cancellation of bail to prevent further harm to the citizens of AP.