The Corrupt, Ineffective, Untruthful And Undemocratic Rule Of Chandrababu

Chandrababu Naidu's four and half years rule in Andhra Pradesh is marked by corruption, incompetence, untruthfulness and undemocratic attitude. Thanks to Naidu's active support, corruption and extortion have peaked and reached to colossal levels; so much so that even sand reaches and temple lands are not being spared. The only area in which Chandrababu Naidu has managed to achieve rapid growth is: high volume corruption. His rule is replete with bribes, commissions, cuts, kickbacks and all imaginable forms of  wheeling  and dealing. Indeed, Mr. Naidu has amassed more illicit wealth in this four and half years than his all previous ministerial stints put together.

This rampant corruption was flagged by several organisations including the National Council for Applied Economic Research (NCEAR), a prestigious think-tank based out of New Delhi, Centre for Media Studies (CMS), another prestigious think-tank from the national capital and the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG). The NCAER's State Investment Potential Index-2016 declared AP number one corrupt state in the country. The CMS corruption study of 2017 ranked the state as the number two corrupt state. The CAG annual reports have been flaying Chandrababu Naidu's misrule, highlighting several instances of blatant corruption and lethargic governance delivery. The waterman of India, Rajendra Singh, in his recent visit to the state in October 2018, described Amaravati scam a bigger scam than Rafael scam.

During the 2014 election campaign, Chandrababu Naidu promised AP people to build a capital city of global standards for the newly carved state. However, in practice, he has thrusted upon them a real estate scam of global scale. With the intention to benefit his ministers, lawmakers and cronies, he has breached his oath of secrecy and leaked the location of the prospective capital. To depress the real estate value in Amaravati region, he has set the rumour mills in motion through his friendly media outlets saying the new capital would come up either at Nuzvid of Krishna district or at Acharya Nagarjuna University of Guntur district. As people flocked to buy lands in these two areas, the real estate value of Amravati region fell sharply. Making the most out of this condition, Chandrababu Naidu, his benamis and cronies have moved in for the kill, duped gullible farmers and bought as much land as possible in and around the prospective capital region.

Amaravati was announced as the new capital on December 28, 2014, only after the concluding the deceitful land purchases by the cronies and benamis of the CM; subjecting the farmers of the region to untold loss. And as per the scheme, the benamis have benefitted immensely in this process.

Chandrababu Naidu has then started a process called land pooling- which was supposed be voluntary, but anything but voluntary, and taken thousands of acres of land from unsuspecting farmers. He then started gifting huge tracts of this land to his favorite companies- which were mostly from Singapore where the Chief Minister has considerable business interests- at lower rates to bag massive kickbacks. Under Babu's watch, the land records of more than one lakh acres have gone missing in Vizag district. In the capital region, thousands of crores of rupees are being wasted on temporary buildings, which are being built with questionable quality by the CM's handpicked contractors. Sand mafia gangs are ruling the roost across the state.
Irrigation  projects  are  overflowing  with corruption.

Flouting rules with impunity, Chandrababu is assigning contracts to his chosen companies on the 'nomination' basis. Contractors have been handed tailor-made GOs to facilitate corruption! Scoffing at EPC (Engineering, Procurement, Construction) regulations, the Chief Minister has been generously dishing out cheques to his handpicked contractors, even when not needed, from the state coffers. The AP Reorganization Act has made it clear that the construction of the Polavaram project was the responsibility of the central government. However, Chandrababu, having sensed a money-spinning opportunity, took the project into his hands and then immediately jacked up the estimated cost of the project from the previous Rs. 16,000 crore to Rs. 50,000 crore. Babu's handpicked contractors have been awarded contracts against kickbacks, while proxies front the project as sub-contractors.

In Chandrababu's rule, corruption is flowing openly from distilleries to wine shops, while venal deals on a scale unheard of are blackening AP's reputation in the purchase of coal. Even the temple lands have not been spared. Sadavarti lands in Tamil Nadu and the lands of the famous Kanakadurga temple in Vijayawada are being sold for a song, clearly after striking payoff deals.

During the tenure of the late Dr. Y.S. Rajashekhara Reddy, 80% work of the irrigation projects got completed. Chandrababu has proved to be so inefficient that the rest of the 20% of work is still unfinished, even after four and half years of time and Rs. 30,000 crore expenditure. Arogyasri programme which has  once made the quality health care accessible to the poor and the middle-class now languishes in a comatose state.
The famed 108 ambulance service-which has once saved thousands of lives with its uninterrupted, free of cost services- has fallen into a state of disuse. Doctors are complaining about the long-pending dues to the hospitals. A call to 104 would bring medicines to the doorstep of the elderly during Dr. YSR's time, but today, in contrast, drivers of 104 and 108 services are not even paid their salaries. Chandrababu's government has failed in implementing the much-celebrated fee reimbursement scheme, which was a brainchild of Dr. YSR, through which hundreds of thousands of students have benefited.

Even as the waters of Krishna and Godavari rivers are being diverted by Telangana, Chandrababu played a  mute spectator fearing repercussions of the note-for- vote case. He was totally silent on the Centre's promise of Special Status to AP for four long years and making noise only after coming out from BJP-lead alliance at the centre.

Chandrababu betrayed farmers by defaulting on his much-touted loan waiver scheme. As the government has failed to pay up even one-third of the interest to banks, the farmers have become 'defaulters' for no fault of theirs and are being denied the fresh loans. Farmers' loans are not being rescheduled and they are finding themselves being sucked deeper into the quicksand of debt. Despite farmers are being subjected to such untold suffering, Chandrababu Naidu has not discussed their plight in any of his cabinet meetings so far. He has betrayed the people of AP on almost all of his poll promises... the waiver of farm loans, the loan waivers to DWCRA groups, a job for every household and monthly unemployment allowance of Rs. 2,000, among others. Chandrababu has been making false claims of having brought the investment of Rs. 15 lakh crore to AP, while the RBI in a report stated that more than 26,000 industries have been shut down during his three-year tenure. The report also states that the costs of power supply have gone up and that industrialists are feeling intimidated by the widespread corruption in the state.

Babu government has weakened the elected local governments by transferring the total administration powers with the ruling party-controlled Janmabhoomi Committees. These committees have the final say on all the important matters of village administration and welfare schemes. Chandrababu has plumbed to new depths of immorality by giving development funds to TDP constituency coordinators in the constituencies represented by YSRCP MLAs! How much more undemocratic and partisan a government can become? Instead of allotting more lands to Tribal people and Dalits, the government took back the lands assigned to them by the previous governments! Grave injustice is being done to Tribal people as the government is denying setting up of an Advisory Council for the Scheduled Tribes. The reason behind this reluctance is six out of seven ST MLAs are from YSRCP and the CM doesn't want to acknowledge them by placing them on an official body.

Chandrababu has used his ill-gotten monies to dismantle political opposition. He has enticed YSRCP lawmakers by offering them Rs. 20 crore to Rs. 30 crore cash, ministerial berths and other positions. Driven by greed, he so far admitted 21 MLAs, one MLC of the YSRCP and made four of them the cabinet ministers. He also has tried to destabilise Telangana government by buying the votes of three MLAs from the ruling TRS to get his party candidate elected to Telangana Legislative Council. During this process, he was caught red-handed on the audio-video tapes. A Chief Minister indulging in a brazen attempt to 'buy' legislators and getting exposed in the bargain through audio-video tapes, still clinging  on to power and escaping the jail term is truly unprecedented.

For sure, this tenure of him will go down in the annals of history as the most corrupt, incompetent, untruthful and undemocratic rule the AP has ever seen. The intellectuals, democrats and youth should come forward and get rid of this obnoxious rule!

Source: Chandrababu, The Emperor Of Corruption

Also Read: Chandrababu Stoops To Snoop On Political Opponents