The orders issued by the Telugu Desam Party government in Andhra Pradesh seeking to withdraw general consent given to the Central Bureau of Investigation to carry out searches in the state is believed to be an attempt to pre-empt the agency to carry out a probe against TDP president and chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu.
The order which was passed on November 8, surfaced only on Thursday. As per the order, CBI officers will have to seek the state government’s permission before visiting the state for official work.
The CBI will not be able to initiate an investigation or conduct searches in the state for now. If at all any raids or searches are required, it will be done by the state Anti-Corruption Bureau.
It was only on August 3 that the state government had given the agency the permission to exercise its powers and jurisdiction in the state.
But, after seeing a series of raids on the TDP leaders including industrialists close to power centre, Naidu sought to withdraw the order.
The state home ministry officials told him that the state government has powers to restrain the CBI.
It was only recently that Naidu expressed apprehensions that the Centre might order raids on his houses soon, as was done in the case of other industrialists and TDP leaders.
So, he wanted to prevent the entry of CBI by withdrawing the general consent. But Naidu gave a strange reasoning for his decision to defend his decision.
According to the officials, the consent to the CBI was withdrawn as people lacked confidence in the CBI after the agency’s senior officers accused each other of corruption.
“This decision has been taken in wake of incidents happening in CBI since last six months,” a TDP leader said, adding that it had lost its independence due to involvement of Modi-led Union government which is using CBI as tools against political opponents by means of preparing fabricated statements.