Pulled up by CM for spat with officer, TDP MP threatens to stop his buses

TELUGU DESAM Party MP from Vijayawada Kesineni Srinivas, who owns one of South India’s largest private travel agency, has threatened to stop his agency’s buses from April 1 after he was allegedly pulled up by Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu for a spat with a senior bureaucrat.

Srinivas’s assertion is being seen as a veiled threat to Naidu, as thousands of people use transportation of Kesineni Travels every day to travel between Hyderabad and coastal Andhra districts.

Stopping the services is likely to result in chaos.

Srinivas,accompaniedbyparty MLA from Vijayawada Central, Bondaumamaheshwararao,had metstatetransportcommissioner N Balasubramanyam on Saturday tocomplainagainstbusesallegedly running illegally.

During the meeting, Rao allegedly pushed aside Balasubramanyam’s personal security officer in a confrontation, and the issue snowballed into a controversy.

Although Parliament is in session, Kesineni stayed put at Vijayawada as Chief Minister Naidu called a meeting of senior TDP leaders of Vijayawada and pulled them up for hurting the party’s image by misbehaving with government officials.

Kesineni told The Indian Express that he was being unfairly blamed for the spat. “I am closing it (Kesineni Travels) 88 years after my family established it,” the MP said.“theissuewiththetransport Commissioner is settled and we havegivenanunconditionalapology. But there are other issues which need to be resolved, which I wont discuss now.”

“But you won’t see any Kesineni buses from the first of next month,” Kesineni said.

Asked what led to the spat, Kesineni said, “Something is going on in that department. You cannot clap with one hand.”

Last week, a few Vijayawadabased TDP leaders had picked up an argument with Transport Commissioner Balasubramanyamlastweek,andkesinenihad backedthem.thetdpleadershad alleged that the Transport Department was issuing permits to private buses whose owners came from outside AP.

Kesineni Travels, which runs services to nearly 100 destinations and has more than 500 daily schedules, is much ahead of competitors. While Kesineni reportedly does not mind “friendly competition” with Diwakar Travels, owned by fellow TDP MP J C Diwakar Reddy and his MLA brother J C Prabhakar Reddy, he is not known to be in particularly good terms with Orange Travels owner M Sunil Kumar Reddy.

Sunil Reddy is a Hyderabadbased businessman, and is originally from Nizamabad in Telangana.

Kesineni is reportedly peeved with the Transport Department issuing Orange Travels 150 permits to run its buses in the state. The MP refused to comment on Orange Travels — “never heard of it,’’ he quipped.

A TDP leader close to Kesineni alleged that Orange Travels, with a single permit, was running at least five buses between Hyderabad and various destinations in AP.

Transport Commissioner N Balasubramanyam did not answer phone calls for a comment on the issue.