VP Naidu’s close confidant sacked

A A Rao, a retired Indian Information Services officer and a close confidant of VicePresident and Rajya Sabha Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu, has been summarily sacked without any reason being assigned. He is a former director of DD News.

Rao was in the news in 2018 after a sexual harassment complaint was filed against him by a Rajya Sabha TV anchor, who was forced to resign after an internal probe by a junior officer found him not guilty. The anchor had even complained to the Rajya Sabha chairman.

Rao had been handling the media publicity of Venkaiah Naidu for many years. He became an additional secretary in the RS secretariat since after Naidu became the chairman of the Upper House. A terse notification by the RS secretariat on Tuesday for publication in the Gazette, with a copy to him, reads: "The engagement of Shri A A Rao as Additional Secretary, in Rajya Sabha Secretariat on contract basis vide Notification No RS/10/3/2019/74-Perl dated 28.08.2019 stands terminated w.e.f. the afternoon of 31st August, 2020."

In her complaint to the Rajya Sabha chairman, the anchor had said: "It was never easy for me to gather courage to protest and lodge a formal complaint against a senior officer, who openly flaunts his proximity to you."

The anchor had alleged that Rao repeatedly messaged her and interfered with her work, and that he made objectionable and “sexually coloured” remarks about her.