Hyderabad: Komatireddy brothers Vs Jagadish duel shakes Assembly

Hyderabad : The Telangana Assembly witnessed uproar following the intervention of the Komatireddy brothers while former energy minister G Jagadish Reddy was speaking during a short discussion on the White Paper on the Power Sector. Minister Komatireddy Venkat Reddy made sweeping remarks against Jagadish Reddy alleging that the latter made Rs 10,000 crores from the Yadadri power project alone.

Allegations and counter-allegations were exchanged between Minister of R and B Komatireddy Venkat Reddy and former minister during the session, even as Komatireddy Rajgopal Reddy also traded barbs with Jagadish Reddy. Countering the claims of BRS that their regime provided maximum power supply for 24 hours a day, Venkat Reddy referring to the incident when he inspected a sub-station in Bandasomaram in Nalgonda district said that he found that the power supply was only between 8 to 12 hours.

Later the disclosure led to log book seizures from all the substations in the erstwhile Nalgonda district, which were shifted to Pragathi Bhavan in Hyderabad on the same day after CMD visited Nalgonda, he said. “I can prove it with evidence. These log books which are in Hyderabad can be referred for this,” he said.

The Minister further alleged that Telangana is in losses because there is a massive scam in Yadadri power station which started with an estimate of Rs 29,000 crore on a nomination basis and without calling for tender. “There is a huge scam in this and he (Jagadish Reddy) has alone gulped Rs 10,000 crore. Now this stands at Rs 50,000 crore (after revision). Apart from him, others have their share of spoils including sub-contractors. I am on record and this is a massive scam without tender,” he said.

Further Venkat Reddy while welcoming the ‘judicial probe’ into the power projects described Jagadish Reddy as a ‘power minister without power’ and termed him as one of the ‘sub-contractors’, while the entire show was run by Prabhakar Rao, the CMD.

These sweeping remarks triggered pandemonium in the house with the Opposition engaged in clamour. “Why were the log-books concealed? Prabhakar Rao will also go to jail,” Venkat Reddy said.

Amidst the uproar, the Opposition MLAs including K P Vivekanand and Kaushik Reddy tried to walk towards the well of the house while protesting against the remarks made by the Minister. Responding to the allegations Jagadish Reddy found this to be a personal attack on him and felt that ‘brothers’ do not have the right to talk about morals, as they have the habit of changing political parties for the sake of gaining favours like contracts. He said that Venkat Reddy was making unfounded accusations and engaged in a personal attack.

Protesting against this Rajgopal Reddy also rose from his seat. He said that since his name was being pulled into the discussion he would not keep quiet and unlike him, he had changed the party only intending to keep KCR out of power. “Time has come that probe uncovers as how the former power minister was able to earn thousands of crores in power project,” he said.

As the uproar continued members from both Opposition and Treasury benches indulged in uproar in the house. As Kaushik Reddy aggressively tried to counter the allegations from Rajgopal Reddy, the latter warned him of dire consequences (Khabardar). The words chosen by Rajgopal Reddy were later raised objections from Jagadish Reddy who urged to be removed from the record.

Intervening in the discussion former speaker Pocharam Srinivas Reddy urged for maintaining decorum. Speaker Gaddam Prasad Kumar made a ruling to expunge some of the allegations from the record.