The sensational murder of former Kadapa MP Y S Vivekananda Reddy, brother of former chief minister of Andhra Pradesh Y S Rajasekhar Reddy, has become a big political issue in the ongoing elections in Andhra Pradesh.
Being an aggrieved party, it is nothing but natural for YSR Congress party led by Y S Jaganmohan Reddy to blame it on the ruling Telugu Desam Party for its failure to protect the law and order.
It is also natural that in the wake of past experiences wherein the state police had failed to crack several cases, Jagan has demanded a CBI inquiry into the murder of his uncle.
Since the TDP is in power, chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu has entrusted the investigation to a special investigation team of the state police.
He is also entitled to defend the police and refuse to hand over the probe to the CBI, since it would demoralise the state police.
But, instead of allowing the law to take its own course and leaving the matter at that, Naidu has been making every attempt to exploit the Viveka murder case to gain political mileage in the elections.
For the last two days, Naidu has been dedicating at least 10 minutes at his public meetings to explain the murder case to the people, as if he himself is investigating the case.
Obviously, Naidu is seeking to highlight the Rayalaseema murder politics and project Jagan in a bad light.
Even at the morning teleconferences with party leaders, he has been brainwashing them on the case and telling them to highlight Jagan’s alleged faction politics.
On Monday, Naidu went a step further and sought to create an impression that the murder of Viveka was due to family problems.
He reminded that Jagan himself had serious differences with his uncle.
“There were reports that Jagan had threatened Viveka, when the latter refused to resign from the MP seat. Only after Sonia Gandhi warned YSR, Jagan had to go silent,” he said.
He even pointed out Jagan had manhandled Viveka twice in the past for his political gains.
“Obviously, the relations between Viveka and Jagan were not good,” he said, indicating that the TDP would create a suspicion in the minds of the people that Jagan has a criminal brain and is trying to throw blame on the TDP.