Twenty-two ministers met chief minister Kiran Kumar Reddy Tuesday to urge him to pull Dharmana Prasada Rao’s fat from the fire.
The roads and buildings minister is facing possible arrest by the CBI for putting his signature to some government orders during the regime of Y S Rajasekhara Reddy, which allegedly yielded quid pro quo benefits to the latter’s son, Jagan Mohan Reddy.
The ministers also sought protection for other ministers who might have done similar deeds in their previous incarnations and may face similar karma.
The delegation expressed their pique that the party has dropped such ministers like hot potatoes and urged the chief minister and PCC chief Botcha Satyanarayana to use their good offices to shield them.
Satyanarayana, who was in Delhi, said he would forward the plea to high figures.
The ball started rolling Monday when eight senior ministers met at tourism minister Vatti Vasanta Kumar’s residence and decided to face the CBI challenge rather than yield meekly.
They decided to take a delegation to the chief minister on the morrow, to suggest to him various options, all of them based on the principle of collective responsibility.
Someone came up with a Supreme Court directive that had ruled that an investigating agency cannot question a decision taken by the entire cabinet.
So on Tuesday morning, 22 ministers called on Kiran Kumar Reddy and laid on his table the said judgement.
“We wanted the chief minister to ask legal luminaries whether a minister can be held accountable for a decision taken by the cabinet and, if not, what he can do to provide immunity,” said finance minister Anam Ramnarayana Reddy.