In the early days of political corruption, people holding high office took “gifts” to do things that should not be done or were illegal. In course of time, the same people began taking gifts for doing routine work that was kept pending for the express purpose of soliciting gifts. But in recent times corruption in Andhra Pradesh has burgeoned to abject “misuse of political power” peppered with “parochialism”, “cronyism”, “nepotism”, “influence peddling” and of course good old “graft”. Corruption has been taken to a new pinnacle here. It has been made so cryptic that it is very difficult for the ordinary man to even get a clue.
Bifurcation chaos proves conducive
Chaos the residual state of Andhra Pradesh was plunged into after bifurcation, provided the Telugu Desam Party president of the party N Chandrababu Naidu who became chief minister, the ideal conditions to operate. The different projects and schemes of the Chandrababu Naidu Government, in retrospect, have turned out to be textbook cases of corruption. The Jagan Mohan Reddy government has taken it up as a challenge to bring all the sleazy into the open and ordered a spree of inquiries. As the different inquiries and probes progress more and more sordid details are seeing daylight.
1,000s of crores embezzled
Graft and embezzlement to the tune of thousands of crores in the execution of the nationalPolavaram project with the funds of Central Government, several other irrigation, earth andcivil works executed with state and central funds, have been brought to light by the JaganMohan Reddy government in various inquiries.There is clear indication of the involvement of Mr Naidu in issues related to the acquiring ofland for a new capital for the state and in the illegal finalising of tenders for the AndhraPradesh State Fibernet Limited (APSFL) project.
CBI to inquire into Naidu’s corruption
The Jagan Mohan Reddy Government has asked the high power Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to make a thorough inquiry into these cases. The Chandrababu Naidu government focusing on the relatively insignificant issue of building a “world-class capital” ignoring so many other important issues is definitely a classic case of“parochialism”. Interestingly, the people in the office with the backing of Mr Naidu indulged in several other classic forms of corruption in the Amaravati lands case that later came to be popularly referred to as the Capital Area development Agency (CRDA) “insider trading” scam. Mr. Naidu and his team did not leave out any form of corruption during their rule.