AP State Congress cry foul over Babu’s Babli trip

Either by design or coincidence, almost the entire Congress leadership chose Wednesday to cry foul over the ‘inspection trip’ to the site of the controversial Babli Irrigation Project in Maharashtra by former chief minister and Telugu Desam Party president N Chandrababu Naidu and his team.

While Chief Minister K Rosaiah spoke against the trip at the state secretariat, his fellow Congress stalwarts chose separate locations to voice their disapproval of the entire five-day episode in which Mr Naidu and his team were arrested and then ‘deported’ to Hyderabad.

Talking to media persons separately, senior Congress leaders Ponguleti Sudhakar, Bhatti Vikramarka, Palludagu Venkat Rao and Tulsi Reddy said that Mr Naidu’s visit, deportation and Wednesday morning’s protest in front of the Gandhi statue in Assembly premises was a drama.

They virtually scoffed at the TDP chief’s protest over the Babli issue by saying that it was like the pot calling the kettle black. They sought to turn the tables on Mr Naidu by saying that it was he who was negligent on the Babli project since he was at the helm of administration in the state at the time the Maharashtra government began construction across the river Godavari.

The senior Congress leaders also decried Mr Naidu’s ‘attempts to gain sympathy’ by claiming that women legislators were manhandled by the Maharashtra police while being forced onto the special aircraft ferrying them to Hyderabad.

They reminded Mr Naidu that his administration had used mounted police against women protestors and also reminded him that his talk to ‘Telugu self-respect’ was meaningless by alleging that he had held ‘Telugu Legislators’ hostage in Hotel Viceroy during the rebellion against then chief minister and TDP founder NT Rama Rao.