-Minister Peddireddy admitted to phone tapping: Varla
-Centre should take serious view of phone tapping
-AP CM should be arrested for trangressions
AMARAVATI: TDP politburo member Varla Ramaiah on Wednesday demanded that Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy tender his resignation, owning moral responsibility for tapping phones of political opponents and judges in the State.
Ramaiah said that Jagan Reddy’s senior most Cabinet colleague Peddireddy Ramachandra Reddy had openly announced at a press conference that their Government had used phone tapping to arrest the accused in the 10th class paper leak.
Addressing a press conference here, the TDP leader asserted that Jagan Mohan Reddy had no right to continue as the CM since his own Minister had admitted to the ‘serious offence’. The Central Government should also take a serious view of the AP Government’s transgressions with regard to phone tapping.
Ramaiah said there was every chance that the Jagan Reddy Government was tapping even the phones of the Prime Minister and the Union Home Minister. No wonder the phones of Chandrababu Naidu and Nara Lokesh were still under tapping as of now. There were allegations that the AP regime tapped phones of the judiciary at the time when CM Jagan wrote a highly controversial letter to the Chief Justice of India.
The TDP leader said that in the federal setup, a State Government would have no major necessity to use phone tapping. The phones should be tapped with the permission of the authorised department only when there would be a threat to the nation from terrorists and extrements.
Condemning the YCP regime’s ‘attitude’, Ramaiah asserted that no Government had the right to invade the privacy of citizens without a valid reason. The AP CM was using all systems as per his whims and fancies. The Chief Secretary and the DGP were not doing the necessary to prevent the misuse of systems for political gain.
The TDP leader expressed concern that since the day Jagan became the CM, the phones of the TDP leaders were being tapped. The YCP Government should release a white paper on the phone numbers being tapped in the past three years. The Government was acting with ‘criminal intent’ under the leadership of Jagan Mohan Reddy.
Ramaiah asserted that their party would take a very serious view of this and it would fight a legal struggle on the phone tapping issue. The Centre should take serious action. The AP Chief Minister should be arrested and an FIR should be registered against the YCP Government.
