Naidu's Warning To Corrupt Leaders A Big Joke!

Telugu Desam Party president and Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu’s warning to corrupt politicians and officials that he would see their end if they indulged in corruption is being viewed as a big joke of the century.

A few days ago, Naidu launched a programme called ‘The People First,’ to fight corruption in governance in the last week of May.  

The initiative provides for a toll-free no. 1100, enabling victims of corruption to register their complaints over phone.

Within hours, the phone number was flooded with calls from people, complaining about rampant corruption from sarpanch to MLA level and from clerk to the IAS officer level.

The CMO claimed that following the initiative and Naidu’s threat, those officials and politicians who took money from people for various works had to return the amount back to the people.

However, a dozen cases of returning money were reported on the first day and nobody knows what has happened later.

But, the corruption at high places continued to exist in a big way and Naidu has remained just helpless. In fact, his own minister for road and buildings Ch Ayanna Patrudu sought to expose `stinking’ corruption in government.

He pointed out that an officer in the rank of Engineer-in-Chief in a department earned Rs 140 crore while a Tahsildar earned Rs 40 crore.

Then the land scam involving 500 acres worth Rs 1,000 crore surfaced in Visakhapatnam district around the same time, bringing to light the nexus between the officials and the ruling party leaders.

What is worse, according to reports, the cases relating to acquisition of wealth disproportionate to known sources of income involving government personnel has been on the rise in the last three years of the TDP rule.

So, instead of targeting small fish through initiatives like People’s First, Naidu should, if he has guts, target land mafia, sand mafia and financial frauds involving banks. For that, the boss himself should come out clean from the charges of corruption!