HYDERABAD: Apparently with an intention to settle political scores with chief minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy, health and family welfare minister DL Ravindra Reddy has dashed off a letter to party president Sonia Gandhi on how the chief minister has made excise minister Mopidevi Venkata Ramana a scapegoat and protected a minister who is guilty of receiving bribes from liquor syndicates because he belongs to his caste.
Ravindra Reddy, who has been breathing fire at Kiran Kumar Reddy for two days for clipping his portfolio, targeted the chief minister once again on Thursday. Apart from writing a letter to the party president, Ravindra Reddy came out openly against Kiran Kumar Reddy, accusing him of having a tacit understanding with TDP chief N Chandrababu Naidu in filling the posts of eight information commissioners under the Right to Information Act.
The health minister alleged that the ACB, at the instance of the chief minister, retained in its remand diary the charge of liquor syndicate organiser in Khammam district Nunna Ramana that he had paid Rs 10 lakh to the excise minister in return for protection to his illegal business. When there was a similar charge against another minister, the chief minister protected him, he said, adding that the developments in the state were very disturbing and immediate remedial measures had to be taken.
Ravindra Reddy narrated how Kiran Kumar Reddy had misused his position to award the `108' emergency service contract to a company of his choice, GVK, though it was not in the interest of the state. He said the GVK group was always very prompt in collecting money from the government but was always very deficient in providing services to needy patients.
The minister is understood to have given a graphic account of how selflessly he had served the party since his entry into public life in 1978. He told the party president how had worked as a minister in the cabinets of N Janardhan Reddy and K Vijaya Bhaskar Reddy, and how suffocated he was feeling now in Kiran Kumar Reddy's dispensation.
ANOTHER LETTER TO CM: Ravindra Reddy also shot off a stronglyworded letter to the chief minister when agriculture minister Kanna Lakshminarayana, who is in charge of Kadapa district, asked him to attend a meeting of party functionaries from Kadapa called by the chief minister at Tirupati on Saturday. Ravindra Reddy said in his letter to the chief minister that it was surprising that a meeting was being organised at Tirupati in Chittoor district when byelections were due in three constituencies in Kadapa district. He advised the chief minister to realise that leaders should go to the cadre and talk to them. ``It is not proper for a leader to ask workers to meet him at a distant place,'' Ravindra Reddy said in his letter to Kiran Kumar Reddy.