On the eve of Andhra Pradesh Assembly’s winter session, the opposition has been presented with another issue that has potential to derail the five-day session. Indicating the tempest going to strike the Assembly, Opposition leader Jaganmohan Reddy today dashed off a four- page letter demanding a high-level probe into the Call Money racket which the opposition party considers also as ‘sex-racket’. Call money is third missile in the armory of opposition party; the other two are bauxite mining and Naidu’s liquor policy in the backdrop of five death occurred in Vijayawada last week. Jagan already announced total prohibition as his policy.
Today Jagan demanded an inquiry by the a sitting High Court Judge into the Call Money racket to expose the people behind the crime, which he said had shaken the conscience of the nation. Jagan cried foul at the chief minister Chandrbabau Naidu’s alleged attempts to implicate leaders of other parties and to bail out the TDP leaders involved in the ‘scam’. According to Jagan, among the kingpins figure at least two TDP legislators -Buddha Venkanna (MLC) and Bode Prasad (MLA). ” To weaken the case and to bail out your party workers and leaders, attempts are being made to implicate leaders from other parties,” he said and asked Naidu to accept the responsibility for the racket as it would not have been made possible without active involvement of the TDP leaders.
Jagan demanded Naidu to make public the connection between the racketeers and TDP MLAs and Ministers. Recalling how Naidu himself instructed officials in collectors’ conference to go slow on TDP leaders if involved in any cases, he said the government had ensured that there was no case against MLA Chintamaneni Prabhakar , even though he manhandled a woman revenue official just for stopping illegal sand mining.
Call Money is a system of lending money at exorbitant rate of interest to the people in dire need, especially small women entrepreneurs and exploiting them if they failed to pay the installments regularly. According to reports, the Call Money organizers had allegedly abused them physically and video-graphed the activities to black mail them. YSRC says it is a sex racket that flourished with patronage from ruling party leaders.
