Hyderabad, March 23: Telugu Desam member of Legislative Council Nannapaneni Rajakumari created a furore on Tuesday demanding action against her party colleague Nagam Janardhan Reddy, chairman of the public accounts committee (PAC) of the legislature, for allegedly collecting bribes from contractors of irrigation projects.
Incidentally, Mr. Reddy convened a meeting of PAC in the Assembly premises on Wednesday with the sole agenda to discuss engineering, procurement and construction system in vogue in irrigation projects.
The meeting invited flak as it was not supposed to be held when the legislature was in session and, moreover, a notification for reconstitution of a new PAC was also issued on Tuesday.
Stating that the meeting had no sanctity, Ms. Rajakumari and two Congress legislators Anam Vivekananda Reddy and P. Sudhakar Reddy, all of whom are members of the present PAC, lambasted Mr. Janardhan Reddy, accusing him of corruption in execution of projects and questioned his moral right to hold the meeting.
Ms. Rajakumari went to the extent of blaming the government and her party leadership for not taking action against Mr. Reddy who had collected commission from contractors. She sought to know how he could chair the meeting after having boycotted Assembly stating that he did not wish to sit next to the MLAs from coastal and Rayalaseema districts.
She claimed that all meetings of PAC under Mr. Reddy’s chairmanship were an eye wash. They only helped members and officials to claim TA and DA.
Mr. Vivekananda Reddy and Mr. Sudhakar Reddy said that they would boycott Wednesday’s meeting. They added that it had become a habit with the chairman to summon contractors to his house.
–Agencies