Hyderabad, Apr 9: The opposition in Andhra Pradesh on Monday demanded the sacking of Home Minister P Sabita Indra Reddy who was named by CBI in the chargesheet relating to the disproportionate assets case against Kadapa MP Jaganmohan Reddy.
TDP President N Chandrababu Naidu said all ministers chargesheeted in the Jagan case should be sacked from the Cabinet and sent to jail immediately.
"They have all looted the state when Y S Rajasekhara Reddy was Chief Minister. All the ministers involved in the scams during the period should be arrested and lodged in jail," he said in East Godavari district.
Sabita has not reacted to the CBI chargesheet yet but is expected to take a decision after meeting Chief Minister Kiran Kumar Reddy on his return from New Delhi, sources close to her said.
She has started consulting some of her colleagues in the Cabinet as well as legal experts on the fallout of the chargesheet, they added.
The issue rang panic bells among some other ministers of the Kiran Reddy Cabinet who too are under the CBI scanner in the Jagan case.
Sabita, who was Minister for Mines in the then Y S Rajasekhara Reddy government, has been named as an accused in the fresh chargesheet filed by CBI in the disproportionate assets case.
CBI is said to have established Sabita's role in issuing certain controversial government orders to benefit Obulapuram Mining Company of former Karnataka Minister Gali Janardhan Reddy who in turn made huge investments in businesses promoted by Jaganmohan as a quid pro quo.
Sabita is the third Minister, after Mopidevi Venkata Ramana and Dharmana Prasada Rao, to be named as an accused in the case and chargesheeted. Mopidevi was arrested by CBI in May last, while Dharmana continues to be a Cabinet Minister.
In August last, Dharmana was named as an accused in the Vanpic land allotments scandal that has a link to Jagan's case as well. It was, incidentally, in the same case that Mopidevi was arrested, following which he resigned.
Though Dharmana too submitted his resignation to the Chief Minister, the latter rejected it. Whether Kiran Reddy will back the Home Minister also is not clear yet.
In fact, the Chief Minister got a resolution adopted by the Cabinet rejecting CBI's request for prosecution of Dharmana in the Vanpic scandal but Governor E S L Narasimhan did not approve of it.
Despite that, Dharmana started functioning as a minister after having stayed away from official duties for about five months.
Three other Congress Ministers – J Geeta Reddy, Ponnala Lakshmaiah and Kanna Lakshminarayana – are also under the CBI scanner in the case against Jagan though on different subjects.
They have not yet been named as accused since investigation against them is still continuing.
