Govts brazenly shielding loyalists

Politics is a safe zone for anyone to go off the hooks. Simply, this is what the latest accident at Mullapadu in Krishna district involving a private bus owned by TDP MP JC Diwakar Reddy from Anantapur district in the Rayalaseema region of Andhra Pradesh has proved.

There is no case whatsoever against the bus operator, J C Uma Reddy, wife of Diwakar Reddy’s brother Prabhakar Reddy, who is TDP MLA from Tadipatri, regardless of the fact that the accident left 11 passengers dead. The law enforcement agencies seem to be taking shelter by blaming the driver for rash and negligent driving to protect the operator, accused of running a fleet over 50 buses inter-state in violation of provisions of the Motor Vehicle Act with little or no safety measures.

It is an open secret that around 10,000 private buses, including the fleet owned by JC brothers, are running as stage carriers with contract permits. The operators are allowed to run buses with contract permits with marriage parties and tourists on board.

But the wily operators manage to flourish by creating fictitious contract agencies to give an impression as if the bus owner has nothing to do with the very buses. The so-called contract agencies are helping operators run buses like stage-carriers by collecting tickets from individual passengers at par with the APSRTC which has a fleet of 10,000 buses.

Fictitious lease documents surface with the help of all-powerful operators stating that the buses have been leased out to someone as to escape from culpability at times of accidents. This came in evidence when a Volvo bus of the same JC family went into flames in which 45 passengers were charred to death at Palem in Mahbubnagar district in 2013.

Documents showed that the ill-fated bus was leased to Jabbar Travels which was later found to be non-existent during police investigations. As per the Motor Workers Act, engaging second driver and allowing driver to take rest for every eight-hour work are mandatory. But most of the operators flout these norms. The Motor Vehicle Act provides for emergency door in all the Volvo buses. The norm is allegedly thrown to winds in most of the cases.

Strange and unpredictable are the vagaries of the law enforcement agencies. When the bus operator, Uma Reddy, responsible for the death of several people, went scot-free, the police slapped a case against the visiting Leader of the Opposition YS Jaganmohan Reddy on the charge of intimidating the public servants after a tiff with Krishna Collector A Babu.

With this, the issue got sidetracked and became politicised following government-sponsored protests by IAS officers and other government employees against the Jagan’s allegedly criminal action. Even as government seeks to put up an image as a savior of public servants by insulating them from assaults, the case of a Tahasildar D Vanajakshi in Krishna district, who was allegedly assaulted by government whip Chintamaneni Prabhakar a couple of years ago stares at it in its office.

However, the JC family was not safe during its association with the Congress. The titanic clash between then Chief Minister YS Rajasekhara Reddy and JC Diwakar Reddy within the Congress had its bearing on the Rs 10,000 crore business owned by JC family, which included mining in Tadipatri area and bus operations. It was alleged that YSR sought to finish off Diwakar Reddy family by dismantling its business empire by appointing Poonam Malakondaiah as Commissioner of the Transport department to crack a whip on the bus agency.

JC earned YSR’s wrath for sailing with former Chief Ministers Marri Chenna Reddy, N Janardhan Reddy and Kotla Vijayabhaskar Reddy in the group rivalries within the Congress. When the deal with Jagan for a maximum number of MLA and MP seats to his group failed, Diwakar Reddy was said to have switched to the TDP from the Congress before 2014 elections. Of course, he struck it rich for his changing political loyalties.

Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu has accommodated Diwakar Reddy as Anantapur MP, his brother Prabhakar Reddy as Tadipatri MLA and currently his son-in-law Deepak Reddy as an MLC even at the expense of Civil Supplies Minister Paritala Sunitha, who lost her husband Ravi in the bloody game of one-upmanship with Reddies in Rayalaseema region and pitched for the MLC ticket for Ravi’s follower Subramanyam.