Pro-Jagan MLAs to resign today

Two MPs, and 25 members of the legislative assembly (MLAs) loyal to Kadapa MP YS Jagan Mohan Reddy on Sunday decided to resign to protest the inclusion of late chief minister YS Rajasekhara Reddy's name in the FIR filed against Jagan, who is currently facing a Central Bureau if Investigation (CBI) probe into the alleged illegal assets case.

Congress leader and former minister Pilli Subhash Chandra Bose said all the legislators would submit their resignations to Assembly speaker N Manohar on Monday. “Our decision to resign is to protest against the attempts to portray the late leader as an accused,” Bose said.

The CBI in its FIR stated that Jagan Mohan Reddy along with his father and then chief minister late YS Rajasekhara Reddy had conspired to cheat the state government. Jagan is accused of influencing YSR and other government officials in order to receive special favours from the government like allocating licences for ports and special economic zones in return of huge amounts of money during 2004-2009.

Vijayamma writes to PM
Meanwhile, YS Rajasekhara Reddy’s widow and Pulivendula MLA Vijayamma on Saturday wrote a five-page letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to ensure that genuine political dissent was not hounded.

Dubbing the ongoing CBI investigation against her son as a clear case of witchhunting and political vendetta, she stated the massive raids unleashed by the investigative agency on the houses and offices of Jagan and persons associated with him were aimed at terrorising and demoralising his party cadre.

Her letter listed out earlier instances of investigations into controversies involving Bofors and the recent Adarsh scam among others to question as to why the CBI at that time had not raided the houses of either Sonia Gandhi or then Maharashtra chief minister Ashok Chavan and why only her family was being subjected to this kind of humiliation.

She compared the treatment meted out to Anna Hazare early this week and the CBI probe against her son and said both the instances showed the Congress leadership's intolerance towards genuine dissent.

Meanwhile, CBI joint director V V Laxminarayana, who is heading the inquiry, said the agency would decide on questioning the individuals after examining the documents and bank statements collected during the searches.