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Opposition silent on TDP taunt on probity
In fact, it is the main opposition leader YS Jaganmohan Reddy of the YSRC who is supposed to have taken forward the debate on probity in public life by reciprocating with a similar gesture. But, he was busy on an anti-food park campaign in Bhimavaram on the particular day. It is obvious that Jaganmohan Reddy
Disclosure of the assets of Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu’s family by his son Nara Lokesh Babu has become stuff only for the day’s media consumption. Although, Naidu claims to have set an example in politics by making public his assets every year, the gesture surprisingly has failed to become feed for the opposition parties to pick holes in the CM’s claims. Nor did it even trigger a spark in the civil society to debate on the deteriorating quality in the polity.
In fact, it is the main opposition leader YS Jaganmohan Reddy of the YSRC who is supposed to have taken forward the debate on probity in public life by reciprocating with a similar gesture. But, he was busy on an anti-food park campaign in Bhimavaram on the particular day. It is obvious that Jaganmohan Reddy cannot pick up the gauntlet thrown by Naidu because of his alleged deep involvement in the infamous money laundering case in the light of the Enforcement Directorate attaching his assets worth Rs 143.74 crore.
The Left parties are preoccupied with campaigns defending the victims of solar plants in Kurnool and Anantapur districts and farmers affected by the Petroleum University promoted by Indian Institute of Petroleum and Energy in Visakhapatnam. Is political corruption not an issue to dominate the Left agenda? “There are issues that are concerning the people day-to-day more than the tainted politics,” quips CPI (M) state secretary P Madhu.
To quote Bhupatiraju Ramesh Chandra, a former Lok Satta Party activist from Tanuku in West Godavari district, people took light of the Naidu’s `Mr. Clean” story. Can anyone believe that CM owns only a ramshackle Ambassador car worth Rs 1.52 lakh and leads a simple life with savings of Rs 1,000 in the national saving scheme, he asked. Lack of CM’s credibility is the cause for people’s indifference, he reasoned.
Andhra Pradesh takes the lead in the India’s story of richest politicians by ranking fourth in political corruption. A post-general election report titled AP fields some of India’s richest politicians” published in the Wall Street Journal on August 30, 2014 reveals that average value of assets owned by the candidates in that election fray has been estimated at $ 1.4 million in US currency.
According to the assets declared along with the nomination filings of the candidates, the YSRC candidate Alla Ayodyarami Reddy, a business tycoon, from Narasaraopet in Guntur district, owns $109 million. The TDP candidates were worth a whopping $11billion on an average. This could perhaps be the reason for the Lokesh’s gesture having failed to let his own party leaders, ministers and MLAs follow the precedence. “After all, it is only a voluntary gesture,” shot back Lokesh while replying to a query from the media.
Analysts feel that crony capitalists began taking a direct plunge into AP politics. Rayalaseema Vidyavanthula Vedika convener Arun Kumar noted that the rot has set in the state politics since the early 1990s marked by liberalisation and privatisation, and politics, as a result, has become commercialised. Every party is steeped in corruption and even the Left parties are no exception, he commented.
The Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), a Bangaluru-based pressure group, recently came out with a `fact-sheet,’ stating that AP Municipal Administration Minister Pongu Narayana tops the list of the country’s 10 richest ministers. A tycoon in teaching business with over 300 branches of the Narayana Group across the country remained a backroom boy in the TDP politics for a long time and became a minister in the 2014 elections by becoming MLC.
The Anna Hazare’s clean politics campaign caught the imagination of students, youth and the intelligentsia in State as was the case all over the country before 2014 elections. The impact, however, failed to last long as the campaign failed to sustain. Consequently, corruption has failed to become a public issue for a variety of reasons. Intelligentsia is polarised along political and caste lines and it failed to play a catalyst in promoting probity in public life. Therefore, the anti-corruption campaign by the civil society is a far cry, says Arun Kumar.
