A lower court in Maharasthra has issued a non-bailable warrant against Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu and 15 others in connection with a protest he had led in the State against Babili irrigation project in Nanded district as it was posing a threat to the interest of then Andhra Pradesh State.
The list of the people against whom the Dharmabad court has issued the warrant include AP Irrigation Minister Devineni Umamaheshwara Rao and many TDP leaders who were MLA at the time of the protest.
Chandrababu Naidu who was leader of Opposition in the then united Andhra Pradesh Assembly had crossed the border into Maharashtra along with 40 MLAs and several other party leaders and tried to reach the Babili project to protest alleging that it would impound more Godavari river water than share of Maharashtra and it will turn northern Telangana region into a desert. Naidu who was arrested and spent many days in jail in Maharashtra was later released on bail. Since then the case was pending in the court.
Dharmabad court magistrate has ordered the police to produce all the 16 respondents including Naidu before it on September 21.
The fresh warrants were issued after a local person moved a petition before Dharmabad court. Nanded district police officials said that they had filed a chargesheet in the court five years ago against 16 persons and the matter was now before the court.
The new development has created a stir in both the Telugu states with the TDP leaders both in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana suspecting political motivation behind the attempt to revive the case.
In his first reaction Chandrababu Naidu said that by fighting against Babili project he had not done any crime. “I had protested to save Telangana from becoming a desert”, he told a meeting after offering pooja to Krishna river at Srisailam project in Kurnool on Friday. “I had told the police on that day itself to do whatever they can. Now they are issuing a warrant against me”, he said.
Former Union Civil Aviation Minister P Ashok Gajapati Raju condemned the warrant and wondered why he was also included in the list of respondents. “It is not correct on part of Modi and Amit Shah to revive old cases”, he said.
TDP MP from Vijayawada Kesineni Nani said that the warrant against Naidu for fighting for the cause of Telugu States was part of a political conspiracy by the Centr. “For all these years they said there was no case. Now how they can issue a non bailable warrant against a Chief Minister like this”, he asked.
He alleged that the Prime Minister Modi, BJP President Amit Shah and the YSR Congress president YS Jaganmohan Reddy were the main brains behind the conspiracy. Interestingly AP Congress has also condemned the warrant against Naidu. State Congress President N Raghuveera Reddy said that it was wrong to book criminal cases against the leaders who take part in mass agitations.
However the State BJP President Kanna Lakshminarayana denied that BJP had anything to do with the warrant against Naidu. “TDP is enacting a new drama by dragging the name of the Prime Minister”, he said. According to the BJP leader the case was continuing since 2014 and the court had issued summons to Naidu and others 22 time but they did not attend the court. The case was booked against Naidu by the Congress Government in Maharashtra, he added.
Meanwhile the warrant has also become a topic of discussions in Telangana political circles as it had the potential to create some sympathy for Telugu Desam. It has come at a time when the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samiti was trying to project the proposed TDP-Congress alliance in the State as “agent of Andhra” and “betrayer of Telangana”.
Senior Telangana TDP leader R Chandrashekhar Reddy recalled that they had experienced a hell in Dharmabad jail in 2010.
“We were arrested on Maharashtra border itself and a group of 80 people was cramped in a small room”, he recalled. He wondered whey cases were booked against them under 9 different sections. “it is unprecedented that a warrant has been issued against the Chief Minister of a State”, he said.