BJP woos supercop Lakshminarayana

Vijayawada: Will supercop VV Lakshminarayana (VVL), who has sought voluntary retirement from the Central service just a couple of days ago, be the face of the BJP in Andhra Pradesh in the next election?

Lakshminarayana, a 1990 IPS officer, has become popular when he served the CBI as its Joint Director in Hyderabad and handled red-hot cases such as YS Jaganmohan Reddy’s disproportionate assets, Satyam and Emaar.

He was additional director-general of police (Planning) in Maharashtra when he sought voluntary retirement. Lakshminaryana led the charge of his CBI team, supervising the investigation into Jaganmohan Reddy’s case and one of his milestones in his career was arresting the YSRC chief after interrogation at Dislkusha Guest House in Hyderabad in May, 2012.    

The top-gun of the Maharashtra police, put in his papers, though he had seven years of service left, fueling speculation that he was trying to dabble in political waters. There were reports that he was toying with the idea of taking a plunge into the saffron party.

Lakshminaryana’s meeting with Maharashtra Governor Ch Vidyasagar Rao after he sought retirement, further fueled the speculation of his imminent transformation into a BJP politico.  Lending credence to the buzz, the BJP leadership in the state expressed its desire to meet him and invite him to wear saffron robes. He has left Mumbai and is now in Hyderabad. 

The BJP leadership pins hopes that the party would get necessary momentum if it has a popular and honest person like Lakshminarayana at the helm. As he has impeccable service record that he is man of integrity, his leadership would help the party gain traction with people at a time when it is locked in an intense battle with the Telugu Desam Party after both of them broke up.

Another factor that is weighing in favour of Lakshminarayana is that he is quite popular among the youth as he had travelled in AP extensively, giving motivational lectures to them on how they should plan their career and be upwardly mobile.

BJP state general secretary Jammula Shyam Kishore says that they would meet Lakshminarayana and extend an invitation to him to join the party. “His ideology is in sync with BJP’s,” he said.

By Patibandla Srinivas