The Andhra Pradesh CID has filed a new petition in the Anti Corruption Bureau court asking for a Prisoner in Transit (PT) warrant to probe incarcerated TDP president N Chandrababu Naidu in connection with the Amaravati inner ring road case even before his legal team was able to secure his bail in the Skill Development scam.
The YSRCP Government is now keen to investigate Naidu’s son and TDP general secretary Nara Lokesh who is accused no.6 while the former chief minister has been named as accused no.1 in the Inner Ring Road case.
Meanwhile, the former chief minister alleged that he had been mentally harassed by the police after his arrest and his interrogation was telecast live with malafide intention. He was taken to Rajahmundry Central Jail at around 1 am on Monday following the verdict of the ACB court after the Vijayawada jail authorities pointed out it was not secured enough to keep him since he enjoys Z-plus security coverage.
Apart from the skill corporation scam, two more cases are under investigation including the Amaravati Inner Ring Road scam where Naidu favoured realtor Lingamaneni Ramesh and the AP state Fibrenet Limited case in which project costs were inflated and the tender was illegally awarded to an individual close to the ruling party.
In the Inner Ring Road scam, the alignments of the road and the seed capital for Amaravati Greenfield capital were done in a way to benefit the Narayana group of institutions belonging to the then urban development minister P Narayana, the Lingamaneni group of institutions, Ramakrishna housing private limited and Heritage foods belonging to Naidu’s family.
Incidentally, Naidu was staying at a property belonging to Lingamaneni Ramesh as chief minister in Vijayawada after he decided to shift the capital from Hyderabad.
The state TDP observed a black day on Monday accusing the YSRCP government of using the police to implicate the party president in false cases and added that there was not even an iota of evidence against him. The TDP had given a call for bandh today and Jana Sena also asked its activists to support the statewide shutdown.
Meanwhile, the police had placed several TDP leaders under preventive custody and even promulgated prohibitory orders in several areas and foiled attempts by the bandh supporters to stop buses or commuters on the roads by arresting them immediately. Educational institutions and offices functioned normally although some private schools declared a holiday due to the bandh call.
The TDP leaders finally met the governor S Abdul Nazeer and submitted a memorandum against Naidu’s arrest.