Articles
Chief Ministers’ Corruptions
Dt:4/6/20
Chief Ministers’ Corruptions
Dr T H Chowdary*
Chief Ministers of Andhra Pradesh (AP) from 2014 onwards have been spending government money on various schemes including welfare, naming them after the name of the incumbent person himself. Sri Chandra Babu Naidu distributed tens of thousands of crores of rupees to various sections of voters calling them for eg: Chandranna Pasupu Kumkamulu wherein government money of Rs. 10,000 for each of over 80 lakhs DWACRA women was credited in their individual accounts . Development schemes and social welfare pay- outs were all named as Chandranna Kanukalu , Chandranna bema, Chandranna bata. In the 2019 elections to the AP Assembly, Sri Chandra Babu’s Telugu Desam Party (TDP) was roundly defeated winning only 25 out of 175 seats . Sri Jagan Mohan Reddy of the YSRCP became the Chief Minister in May 2019. He has launched several schemes of social welfare paying out government money into the accounts of different sections of people like women who send their children to schools (Amma Vodi)-------. In the first year of the his Chief Ministership, he has proudly advertised that more than Rs. 40,000 cr had been credited to the accounts of 3.47 cr beneficiaries and many more sections of the people would get government money. Each one of the schemes is named after himself as Jagananna Kanukalu or after his late father Y S Rajasekhara Reddy (YSR). Sri Jagan Mohan Reddy is following the example set by Sri Chandra Babu Naidu himself. When Naidu was the Chief Minister Chunduri Anjaneya Prsasad was appointed as the Chairman of the Hindu Dharma Prachar Trust (HDPT), an organ of Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanam. His qualification : writing jatakas. In return for the favour he received from Sri Naidu, he proposed that the 500 Rama temples that were built by the TTD money in the period 2014 -18 be painted in yellow colour of the TDP flag. Because of the public agitation, the scheme did not take up .
2. Sri Jagan Mohan Reddy got all the Panchayat offices in villages painted in his party’s colours. On a PIL filed , the AP High Court ruled that this was impermissible and ordered the government to remove the paint. Sri Jagan Mohan Reddy’s government did not had to the High Court but went to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court ruled that the High Court’s order was right. It gave four weeks for removal of the party’s colors from all government buildings. Sri Naidu has given a statement that the cost of removing the YSRCP colours and repainting them in standard (neutral) colour should be recovered from Jagan’s party. Sri Naidu is obviously moralizing, forgetting that Sri Jagan Mohan Reddy is only following the practices that Sri Naidu initiated.
3. Distributing government money to voters among different sections of the population, as gifts in the personal name of the incumbent Chief Minister, must be held to be a corrupt practice: mis-application and mis-appropriation of government money for glorification of the person holding the office of Chief Minister. The Rs. 40,000 cr of the government money distributed in the personal name of the incumbent Chief Minister and his late father, and that distributed by the former Chief Minister , Sri Chandra Babu Naidu in his name should be recovered from these two persons . If the High Court does not take suo moto notice of the corrupt practice of Chief Minister who use government money for personal glorification, some public spirited person should take up this issue in High Courts /Supreme Court. Both Sri Chandra Babu Naidu and Jagan Mohan Reddy or their parties should be required to give the money that they spent / distributed in their name back to the government . (615 words)
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