Right from the day one, YSR Congress party president and chief minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy has been warning his MLAs and cabinet colleagues against indulging in any kind of corruption and irregularities in any works.
Yet, some of them continue to find ways to make money through backdoor methods. Of late, an incident of a senior minister trying to make a quick buck in a district came to light, but his attempt was stalled by a junior minister from the same district.
However, the incident did not reach the chief minister, as both the ministers settled the issue before it reached serious proportions.
The issue pertains to some municipal works taken up during the Telugu Desam Party regime. There were allegations of largescale corruption in the municipalities in the name of developmental works like laying of underground drainage systems and laying of drinking water pipelines.
Even in this particular district, lot of money allegedly changed hands from contractors to politicians. Right from the local ministers belonging to the district to the young TDP leader at the top, everybody got his or her share in the booty.
The sub-contracts for various works were given to the local TDP leaders who apparently happened to be the followers of the minister.
They all got the works without any official work orders on the condition that they should bear the election expenditure of the minister and campaign for him in the recent elections.
It is a different matter that the minister finally lost to a YSRC candidate in the elections that turned out to be the costliest ever.
After the YSRC came to power, Jagan government stalled all the pending bills due to be paid to the sub-contractors.
As a result, the TDP leaders who had done the works have been running from pillar to post, including the present minister from the same district and also local MLAs, to get the bills cleared.
It is learnt the former TDP minister from the district took one of his relatives who had done the sub-contract for a major work to a senior minister in Jagan cabinet and requested him to settle his bills.
The senior minister obliged his request and got the bills passed, but not before the contractor paid 50 per cent commission.
Apparently, some more contractors from this district reportedly approached this senior minister to get their bills cleared at a handsome commission.
On coming to know about it, a junior minister from the same district entered the scene and told the senior not to involve in the works done in his district. He also pointed out that all these contractors had worked against him in the elections.
This angered the senior minister, who questioned the audacity of the junior minister in giving him warning. This led to a tussle between the senior and junior, but both of them decided to end the dispute without dragging it further as they did not want the issue to come to the notice of the chief minister.
In the process, the local TDP leaders, who were expecting their bills to be cleared even at the cost of hefty commission, were thoroughly disappointed!