Former Union Minister and senior Congress leader Chinta Mohan on Saturday expressed doubts about the security of Telugu Desam Party national president N. Chandrababu Naidu at the Rajahmundry Central Prison and demanded that he be given top priority by the concerned authorities.
Speaking to the media here, Chinta Mohan observed that he had known him for close to 48 years when they were in the Youth Congress. “With decades of presence in politics and having served as the Chief Minister for 14 years, the allegations of corruption against Mr. Naidu seem to hold no water in it. The Jagan Mohan Reddy government had grossly misused the Anti-Corruption Act and the IPC procedures in this issue,” the Congress leader alleged.
Mr. Chinta Mohan deplored that Andhra Pradesh turned into a hotbed for vindictive politics, leading to mental and physical harassment of the leaders of the opposition parties by the YSRCP government. “The ruling parties at the Centre and in the States should consider adopting a generous and cordial attitude towards the opposition parties. When Nehru was the Prime Minister, he openly stated in the parliament that Atal Bihari Vajpayee would one day become the Prime Minister. Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi, while in power, had followed the principles of tolerance towards opposition parties,” he said.
“We need to have historical judgments on the lines of the former Chief Justices of India P.N. Bhagwati and K.G. Balakrishna. While the former brought reforms to bring justice to the common man, the latter played a crucial role in introducing of mid-day meal programme in schools all over India, providing jobs to over seven lakh people and feeding over 15 crore schoolchildren in India, besides making 27% reservations to the OBCs a reality,” Mr. Chinta Mohan said.
The Congress leader predicted early polls to both the Lok Sabha and the Andhra Pradesh Assembly before February next year.
