Congress leaders defend CM’s power stand

Several Congress leaders including ministers, former ministers and legislators came in defence of the Chief Minister, Mr K. Rosaiah, over corruption charges levelled against him by the Telugu Desam leader, Mr G. Muddukrishnama Naidu.

Mr Naidu alleged that the Chief Minister took crores of rupees to favour private power producers to sell 20 per cent of their power outside the state. This prompted several Congressmen to come to the rescue of the Chief Minister on Monday. Mr Rosaiah separately addressed series of press conferences denying the allegations.

“When the Electricity Regulatory Authority itself has not allowed the sale of power outside, and when such a provision is not in existence how can the TD leader make such absurd allegations of money changing hands?” he asked.

The ministers, Mr Danam Nagender, Mr Gade Venkata Reddy, former minister, Mr J.C. Diwakar Reddy, Mr Shabbir Ali, Mr M. Shasidhar Reddy, Mr Kanteti Satyanarayana Raju, and MLA Mr Gandra Venkata Ramana Reddy demanded an open apology from Mr Naidu, who often made such allegations against leaders in the past. “If he will prove his allegation we will resign from our posts and quit politics,” they said.

They said Mr Rosaiah never faced a single corruption charge in his five decade long political life and his administration is as transparent as a mirror.

Meanwhile, Transco released a statement on Monday stating the entire power being produced by all the eight Independent Power Producers (IPPs) is supplied to AP discoms only and not a single unit of energy has been allowed to be sold outside the state. It stated that the allegation that IPPs having Power Purchase Agreements are selling power outside the state is totally baseless and without an iota of truth.