COuRt’S ARRESt WARRAnt AgAinSt nAiDu RAttLES tDP
Some ministers termed it as a conspiracy by PM who was ‘out to demolish’ Naidu who ‘stood up to him’, while others vowed to retaliate with ‘dire consequences’.
Anon-bailable arrest warrant issued by a Maharashtra court to Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu in connection with an eight-year-old case has created panic in the ruling Telugu Desam Party (TDP). As per the warrant issued by the First Class Judicial Magistrate, Dharmabad in Nanded district, the Chief Minister, two of his ministers and 13 others were to be produced before it on 21 September.
This arrest warrant has two consequences: first, if Naidu and his two ministers appear before the court at the next hearing, they might be granted bail on production of personal surety. However, there is also a possibility of their arrest, even for a brief period, which might compel the CM to quit his post. If they ignore the warrant, that might attract further legal complications to a sitting CM.
As soon as the news of the court in Maharashtra, where the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is in power, serving the Warrant of Arrest (Under Section 70of CrPC) in Crime No 67.2010 broke, the Chief Minister and his ministers erupted in anger and protest. Some ministers termed it as a conspiracy by Prime Minister Narendra Modi who was out to demolish Naidu who “stood up to him”, while others vowed to retaliate with “dire consequences”.
Naidu and others were booked under IPC Sections 353, 324, 332, 336, 337, 323, 504 506, 109 and 34 (mostly for creating disturbances and disobeying police orders and obstructing public servants) when they held a protest demonstration at Babli Irrigation project across Godavari river on the border of Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh in 2010.
Naidu, along with hundreds of TDP leaders, stormed into the Maharashtra border where the Babli project was being constructed, on the ground that the dam would deprive downstream fields in Northern Telangana of combined Andhra Pradesh. Naidu termed the project illegal, while the Maharashtra government maintained that it was well within its right to build the project from its quota of water of Godavari.
Naidu, as the TDP president, was struggling at the time to regain his lost glory in Andhra Pradesh and took up the Babli project agitation to win over the confidence of people of Telangana. The Maharashtra government, then ruled by Congress, took Naidu and his men into preventive custody and bundled them off into a flight to Shamshabad International Airport at Hyderabad.
Subsequently, everyone forgot the case in the last eight years, while the Dharmabad court in Nanded district continued hearings in the case—Maharashtra State vs Nara Chandrababu Naidu and others in a original miscellaneous criminal appeal No 27/2013 and issued notices to the Chief Minister to appear before it.
Naidu and his men were apparently unaware of the notices, if one were to go by their version.
However, the NBW signed by Dharmabad Judicial Magistrate (FC) N.R. Gajbhiye on 5 July, made its way to the Chief Minister’s office in the Andhra Secretariat only a few days ago, thus triggering alarm bells in the ruling party camp. Naidu on Thursday closeted with his legal counsels and discussed the options before him in the case.
According to sources close to the CM, there appeared two options to Naidu—first, to respond to the warrant and appear before the court and get away with a permission to be exempt from personal appearance further, and second, is to appeal before the High Court seeking stay of the First Class Judicial Magistrate orders.
There also emerged a third option— to defy the warrant— and term the order as a political vendetta by the BJP which is ruling in Maharashtra.
This is a political option and might help Naidu win some brownies before the public, but some of his aides are wary that it might create further legal troubles for him in the case. A senior leader told this newspaper on Friday that the CM might knock the HC’s doors next week.
But,the arrest warrant has created enough heat and dust in the already politically charged atmosphere of Telangana and Andhra. Andhra Agriculture Minister Somireddy Chandramohana Reddy and Excise Minister Nakka Ananda Babu who, too, received warrants along with Naidu, dared the BJP to arrest them and threatened to face the case politically.
Chandramohana Reddy said: “This is a pure political vendetta against us. They revived an eight-year-old case only to bring pressure on us and divert our leader’s (CM Naidu) attention from building a grand alliance in Telangana against the BJP and TRS.” Ananda Babu said that the BJP was trying to damage Naidu as he was the only one in the country who could stand up to Prime Minister Modi.
On the day of Ganesh Chaturthi on Thursday, TDP cadres across Andhra Pradesh held protest demonstrations and burnt effigies of the PM and BJP president Amit Shah. They blocked traffic on the national highways and raised slogans against the Centre and Maharashtra government. TDP is planning many more such protests next week too.
However, BJP leaders condemned the attacks and said that their party had nothing to do with the case which is purely a judicial matter. “Issuing an NBW against those who don’t appear before a court is a routine matter and the Centre should not be blamed for it. Naidu is trying to derive political mileage out of this warrant,” Andhra BJP president Kanna Lakshminarayana said.
Another BJP leader and former Union minister Daggubati Purandeswari, too, rubbished TDP leaders’ argument that the BJP was trying to topple the Naidu government through this case. “We have no role in the whole case. Anyway, the TDP is going to lose power in Andhra in a few months’ time, why should we bring it down through an NBW?” she said.
Andhra Congress committee president N. Raghuveera Reddy came to the defence of Naidu, saying that “the court should not have issued an NBW in a case where a sitting CM and two ministers are involved. They are public figures and they were booked while fighting for a public cause”. YSR Congress felt that Naidu was trying to glorify himself by disobeying the law. The Congress, which is keen on building a grand alliance (Mahakutami) in Telangana, is facing a tough time as potential allies are demanding more seats than it can give. Of the 119 Assembly seats here, the party is not ready to concede more than 29 seats to them all put together and wants to keep at least 90 for itself.
However, going by the initial demands from allies, including the TDP and CPI, the number may go up to 40 or 45, leaving Congress with only 80 or 75, which is totally unacceptable to the party which wants to come to power on its own in Telangana. The issue was brought to the notice of Congress president Rahul Gandhi when he held a marathon meeting with Telangana party leaders in Delhi on Friday.
Rahul Gandhi is particular about forming an alliance with like-minded parties to defeat the Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao-led TRS in the coming Assembly polls that might be held along with those of the four states Assemblies in December. However, the wish list of allies has become a headache for the party, according to seniors who were present at the Friday meeting in Delhi.
The TDP, which won just 15 seats in 2014, has now identified 30 seats where its vote share is more than 30%. The party, which is ruling neighbouring Andhra Pradesh, wants at least 19 or 20 seats. The CPI which won just one seat last time wants to contest six seats this time. The Congress is in a piquant situation as both TDP and CPI have been asking for seats where the party has sitting MLAs now.
The grand alliance is packed as four other smaller parties have expressed their desire to join it. They are Prof Kodandaram-led Telangana Jana Samithi (TJS), Telangana Inti Party (TIP), Yuva Telangana Party (YTP) and Madiga Reservation Porata Samithi (MRPS). All these are new entrants to election politics, but want some good number of seats to make their presence felt.
Telangana Congress president N. Uttam Kuamr Reddy told The Sunday Guardian on Saturday that the actual process of negotiations with allies was yet to begin and hoped that the seat sharing issue would be sorted out smoothly. “We will not give up our seats or our strongholds, but try to evolve a mechanism to see that anti-TRS votes were not divided,” Reddy said.