Naidu looted public money in Capital constructions, must be investigated: Gudivada
Vijayawada: Industries minister Gudivada Amarnath cited reports of Deccan Chronicle daily in the state Assembly on Friday and said a big scam occurred in the APCRDA during the time of the Telugu Desam government. “The then-chief minister Chandrababu Naidu received Rs 15.14 crore from Manoj through Dubai country currency, the dirham,” the minister said.
He said that details of this scam got exposed close on the heels of another scam of the previous TD government, namely the Skill Development Corporation scam.
The minister said massive corruption was committed by Chandrababu Naidu and his henchmen during the TD government’s five year term, of the order of Rs 143 crore through fraudulent methods, and this involved contracts of infra giants such as L&T and Shapoorji Pallonji.
He said the investigation wing of the IT department, New Delhi, has begun the probe in 2019 in relation to the two companies that had been awarded various contracts by the TD government, “which were found to be bogus under the guise of sub-contracts.” He said that the income tax department now began its probe against Chandrababu Naidu.
The minister said, “We are trying to bring to the public's attention Chandrababu's skill in corruption and looting. Naidu looted public money by looking for opportunities in crises like a state division.”
“Naidu has looted public money in the construction of buildings for the Secretariat, the Assembly and courts. In February 2020, IT raids were conducted on the house of Chandrababu Naidu's former personal secretary. The Central Board of Direct Taxes unearthed RS 2,000 crore in the raids in which 40 places were inspected, bogus sub-contracts, invoices, bills and other evidence seized or found.”
The minister said the former CM must be investigated in detail. He recalled the Income Tax notices given to Chandrababu Naidu on September 28, 2022 which mentioned that this case was being shifted to the DCAC-Central Circle.
“Based on this, Chandrababu will also be called for investigation in the future. Hence, he must be questioned.”
The minister said the Income Tax sleuths have also prepared a report after interrogating many people on this case, in which delivery of money to Chandrababu Naidu and Telugu Desam was mentioned.
He said Manoj Vasudev was the key person associated with Shaporji Pallonji. “Chandrababu started getting acquainted with him in 2017. After that, in February 2019, both met and discussed matters in detail at Chandrababu's house.”
The minister said Manoj Vasudev gave a statement that he was asked by Naidu to give him money from the funds of the Assembly, Secretariat and court constructions, for which his organisation had taken the contract.
He said that during the previous government's tenure, by December 2018, Shaporji Pallonji had been given contracts worth Rs 8,000 crore, TIDCO was given Rs 7,000 crore for houses construction, and another Rs 700 crore worth of construction projects in Amaravati were given to the company, as per investigated records.
The minister said Manoj Vasudev clarified that Chandrababu’s PS asked for Rs 100 crore towards the ruling party’s fund at the time of the 2019 election in lieu of the Amaravati contracts.
Amarnath said Chandrababu’s PA, Srinivas, and Lokesh’s PA, Rajesh Kilari, were also involved in this case. “Srinivas attached two persons --Vicky Jain and Vinay Nangalia -- to Manoj, raised bogus invoices in the names of Vicky Jain and Vinay Nangalia and transferred Rs 52.5 crore and Rs 62.90 crore. Atul Soni, a representative of L&T, was also attached to Manoj. Soni received Rs 41.90 crore and all this money was transferred to RVR Raghu, Krishna, Narayan, Srikanth and Anikad Balota through bogus vouchers.”
He alleged that apart from these, a sum of Rs 15.14 crore was given to Chandrababu in Dubai in dirhams and a total of Rs 143 crore changed hands thus.
