Hyderabad: Two more employees in Deputy Chief Minister Dr T. Rajaiah’s office have been sacked on Saturday.
Though termination orders are yet to be issued, official sources said the minister’s personal assistant Salmon Raju and public relations officer Raghunandan Rao were asked to leave with immediate effect.
It may be noted that the minister's OSD (officer on special duty), Sampat was removed on Friday.
The Deputy CM’s office who holds charge of health, has been facing corruption charges regarding the purchase of ambulances, medical equipment for medical colleges, appointment of para medical staff etc.
Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao who took a serious view of the issue is said to have directed Mr Rajaiah to ‘clean-up’ his office by removing his tainted staff first, who are accused of interfering in the health department's activities by demanding bribes to do favours for certain individuals and organisations.
While the trigger against Dr Rajaiah was the recent outbreak of swine flu, which the health department failed to tackle effectively forcing the CM to intervene himself to set right things, the corruption allegations against the minister and his staff came as a bolt from the blue.
Speculations were rife on Saturday that having axed the entire staff in his office, it will be now the turn of Dr Rajaiah to face the axe anytime now. However, sources said the CM will take some more time to take a decision on this since Dr Rajaiah hails from the Dalit community. Though the minister was not seen in Secretariat on Saturday, he attended an international cancer seminar at the HICC in the evening.
