Hyderabad: Senior Congress legislator T. Jeevan Reddy on Tuesday said that the soft handling of the cash-for-vote scam by Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao had led to the present situation where the attorney general had advised the Governor to implement Section 8 of the bifurcation Act.
He said Mr Rao should have booked AP Chief Minister N. Chandra-babu Naidu as an accused and key conspirator on the day TD MLA Revanth Reddy was taken into custody, or when Bishop Harry Sebastian, another accused in the case, disclosed the involvement of Mr Naidu. “Mr Rao did neither. Instead, he resorted to making statements saying Naidu would be jailed and nobody could save him. It was not only a tactical mistake on his part but also a costly blunder,” Mr Jeevan Reddy said.
“This gave ample time for Mr Naidu to bring pressure on the Centre,” he said.
The former minister, an advocate, said there was no mention about AP in the controversial Section 8 of the bifurcation Act and the Governor needs to take advice from only the TS Council of Ministers on the subjects related to safety and security of people living in the common capital area of Hyderabad, he said.
“First of all the TS Council of Ministers should tender their advise to the Governor, and it is for the Governor to exercise his decision over it. There is no mention of AP or AP Cabinet in this, hence one need not agitate on the implications of Section 8,” Mr Jeevan Reddy added.
He said that even assuming there phones were tapped, as alleged by TD leaders, the AP government should have filed a complaint with the TS police. “It is the duty of the TS police to investigate and not the AP police,” he said.
