Such are the circumstances surrounding TRS MLC Kalvakuntla Kavitha, daughter of Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao, whose name has come up in the ED’s remand report on one of the accused in the Delhi liquor scam case. After this development on Wednesday, Kavitha’s PR staff announced the next day that she would be speaking to the media at 8.30 am, to respond to the news of her name appearing in the ED remand report. But the promised interaction did not begin till 10 in the morning, leaving everyone to wonder why. Questions began doing the rounds with speculation going haywire. It was believed that some ministers and TRS MLAs would arrive to be seen standing with Kavitha, expressing solidarity, while she spoke with the media. But this did not happen. Only one MLA and two MLCs, that too from the erstwhile Karimnagar district, turned up at around 10 am, after which, Kavitha finally appeared before the media. The experience was different from the day in August last when the BJP, BJYM and the BJP Mahila Morcha workers tried to lay siege on Kavitha’s residence in Banjara Hills. Immediately after the BJP’s West Delhi MP Parvesh Verma and former BJP MLA Manjinder Singh alleged that Kavitha had a role in the Delhi liquor scam, a group of ministers and MLAs under GHMC limits were seen at her house, expressing solidarity. So, what has changed in just four months? Supporters, unlike diamonds, are not forever.
EX-MAYOR SPREADS RUMOURS FOR PUBLICITY
Limelight is like oxygen for politicians. Remove public discussions and coverage about them, and they struggle like a fish out of water. Politicians go gasping to great lengths to become the talk of the town. A case in point is former Hyderabad mayor Bonthu Rammohan, who is apparently feeling lost, with no one really talking about him. Hey presto! His wife, Bonthu Sridevi, a GHMC corporator representing the TRS, complained about how Cherlapally MLA Bethi Subhash Reddy, of the same party, was not only neglecting her division but also hatching a plan to kill her. Her allegations not only sent the media into a tizzy, but also got the attention of party bosses. But they soon realised there was no truth to her allegations. She was warned not to indulge in anti-party activities, but guess who was happy about being back in the news. Even while this false allegation was being sorted out, news was “planted” that Rammohan had been picked up by the CBI, which too turned out to be false. The party, reeling under several of its leaders coming under increasing scrutiny from the income-tax department, ED and CBI, quickly did some digging and found that the former mayor could have been the source of the rumour that he had been picked up. To his discomfiture, the TRS figured out that he was attempting strong-arm tactics to push for his own candidature for the Uppal constituency ticket in the next elections. A party axe, it is learnt, is being ground to a fine edge to take action against him. When the blow will fall is the question doing rounds within the party.
AP CMO BACK TO BEING ACTION PACKED
After a lull, the office of the Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister is expected to become eventful again with the appointment of Poonam Malakondaiah as Special Chief Secretary to Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy. While Jagan Mohan Reddy preferred to retain the newly appointed Chief Secretary K.S. Jawahar Reddy in the CMO initially, because he thought the latter’s presence was required more in his office than as CS, Jawahar Reddy finally landed the plum chair in the CS office. After all, ever since N. Chandrababu Naidu, in combined AP, turned the CMO into a super office that calls the shots, much attention has been paid to who holds strings there, even more than the CS office. It came as no surprise that Jagan Mohan Reddy continued the tradition of accommodating chief secretaries in the CMO after retirement, with the lone exception of L.V. Subrahmanyam. However, the new post created for the latest entrant into the club of re-employed babus, Sameer Sarma, caught everyone by surprise. Sarma will be Chief Executive to the Chief Minister. It will take time to get a clear idea what the role will be all about, and whether it will be equal to the likes of Sajjala Ramakrishna Reddy, or not.
WHAT'S NEXT FOR DGP MAHENDAR REDDY
What would be next for Telangana’s top cop? With his retirement on December 31 nearing, there is considerable curiosity among the babus, particularly the uniformed kind, of what M. Mahendar Reddy, the DGP, will do come January 1, 2023. Most feel that Mahendar Reddy is slated for a new role, a viewpoint bolstered with the appointment of IPS officer Govind Singh, a day after his retirement from the post of DG CID, as commissioner of inquiries in the general administration department for two years. Earlier, during the inaugural of the Integrated Command Control Centre, Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao described the facility as Mahendar Reddy’s brainchild, and announced that the DGP’s services would be used even after his retirement. Given the low profile Mahendar Reddy has been maintaining for quite some time, his possible new role is a centre of discussion among top cop circles.
LEFT NOT KEEN TO BE LEFT BEHIND
Who can say no to the call of power? After all, no one wants to be “left” behind. So when the TRS recently threw its lot with the CPI and CPM ahead of the bypoll in Munugode, everyone in the Left began waking up and smelling alternative opportunities. When Prof. R. Limbadri recently released a poster of the left-leaning PDSU’s two-day state conference in Hyderabad in the second week of December, the PDSU claimed Limbadri called upon all students to participate and make the event a grand success, which raised some uncomfortable questions. Would he do the same if the ABVP, the student wing of the BJP, or the Congress-affiliated NSUI, were to approach him for poster releases? Or even offer a few words of encouragement to the student community to take part in their events? Is it proper for the head of an institution that steers higher education to bat for one student organisation? No answers, after all, the Left is, de facto, now part of the ruling alliance.
CONMEN AND BLACKMAILERS ON THE RISE
The city is seeing a surge in conmen and blackmailers. A guy from Madhya Pradesh, who collected monies saying he could offer protection from ED raids to politicians and companies, became exposed as the mastermind of extortion in the state. The man used his high-flying position to make lucrative offers to politicians and parties on the one hand, and on the other, used salacious and scandalous information thus obtained, to sell them out to agencies for scoring brownies. As the elite are learning, your secrets are safe only with you. Now everyone is avoiding this person, like the flu, just like the earlier referred to conman is being boycotted.
