N Chandrababu Naidu, the leader of the Telugu Desam Party, was taken into custody on Saturday and sentenced by an Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) court to 14 days of judicial detention. Chandrababu Naidu was taken to Rajamahendravaram’s Central Prison. The Andhra Pradesh Skill Development Scam case, which involves many millions of dollars in corruption, has the TDP leader as a defendant.
A private room, home-cooked meals, and access to medication are just a few of the perks provided for the lawmaker in their nineties. Due to a supposedly imminent threat to his life, the former chief minister of Andhra Pradesh has also been given a separate room inside the jail. A security protectee of the Z-plus level, he.
Nara Lokesh, Nara Naidu’s son and TDP general secretary, accompanied his father to the jail gates and remained there till it was time to go, according to PTI.
The TDP’s jabs at YS Jagan Mohan Reddy, the chief minister of Andhra Pradesh, for being a governor on bail, seem to have backfired on Chandrababu Naidu himself ahead of the assembly elections in Andhra Pradesh.
Who, if not Chandrababu Naidu, is most likely to lead the TDP?
Heavy hitters in the Telegu Desam Party, such former education minister Ganta Srinivasa Rao and party head of the Andhra unit Atchen Naidu, have been tarred and feathered by the case. Can the TDP maintain its attractiveness before the pivotal elections, though, with Atchen Naidu or Ganta Srinivasa Rao?
Additionally, Nara Lokesh, Chandrababu Naidu’s son and TDP general secretary, is probably going to be subject to an investigation in the corruption issue involving the Andhra Pradesh Skill Development.
The TDP would lose its shine in the lead-up to the 2024 Lok Sabha elections and the upcoming Andhra Pradesh Assembly elections if a protracted court dispute were to take place.
As concerns about the TDP’s ability to mount a comeback in Andhra Pradesh without Chandrababu Naidu would be raised, it would also cause uncertainty among the ranks.
The Telegu Desam Party, however, might elect to keep Naidu as their leader despite the fact that the former chief minister is currently housed in Rajamahendravaram central jail.
The TDP, however, thinks that going after a man in his 70s will result in people voting for him out of sympathy. This is an effort to repeat Naidu’s 2003 tactic, in which he utilised the Naxalite attack on himself as a campaign issue but ultimately lost the election to the YS Rajasekhara Reddy-led Congress.
According to CID, the probe has uncovered irregularities, including the fact that the state government at the time provided an advance of 371 crore rupees, or the entire 10% commitment by the government, prior to any expenditure by private firms.
According to CID officials, the majority of the funds given by the government were fraudulently transferred to shell businesses through invoices, with no actual delivery or sale of the goods listed on the invoices.
According to the CID’s report on the case’s remand, the investigation has revealed that the ₹371 crores in cash granted by the government of Andhra Pradesh and the AP Skill Development Centre were the only sources used to pay for the sum total of private businesses’ expenditures on six skill development clusters.
