Not even Narendra Modi or the centre will come to Chandrababu Naidu’s rescue, Telangana chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao (KCR) thundered, an hour after Andhra Pradesh chief minister Mr Naidu had ended a day of meetings with the President and also the prime minister, union home minister and several BJP leaders in Delhi on Wednesday.
Both chief ministers have accused each other of foul play what is being called the cash-for-vote scandal; a legislator from Mr Naidu’s party was arrested last week.
”We have not tapped anyone’s phones. How come they are coming up with all this, about our allegedly having tapped 120 phones only after the May 31 incident when Telegu Desam Party MLA Revanth Reddy was caught red handed trying to bribe our MLA? They didn’t say anything in the last one year when we were working out of the same capital?” Mr Rao asked.
On Tuesday, Naidu had reportedly switched security personnel given to him and his ministers from Telangana, to those from Andhra Pradesh.
Telangana chief minister said ”Doesn’t he realise that in Hyderabad it is the jurisdiction of the Telangana police and not Andhra Pradesh. Even he is only a guest Chief Minister here because he doesn’t have office in his state. It is only a courtesy extended. Our DGP will write to Union home ministry about this.”
KCR’s Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) has accused Mr Naidu of playing a role in the alleged bribery attempt by Revanth Reddy, a legislator of his Telugu Desam Party (TDP), to Elvis Stephenson, a nominated MLA, to influence his vote in the state legislative council elections.
“If he does like that (tries to arrest me) then it will be the last day for his government,” Mr Naidu told NDTV in Delhi yesterday.
A TV channel in Telangana, TNews, aired an audio recording on Sunday of what it alleges is a conversation between Mr Naidu and Mr Stephenson. TNews is at least partly owned by the family of KCR.
”Naidu doesn’t want us to call a thief as a thief, ” KCR said sarcastically. ”Naidu is badly caught. Can he deny it is his voice on tape? Can he deny that his MLA was caught red handed? So he is trying to divert attention through all these tactics,” he added.
