YSR party outs CBI director’s phone list

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YSR Congress MLAs on Thursday demanded a probe by a Supreme Court judge into an alleged “conspiracy” behind the arrest of their leader Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy.

Accusing CBI joint director V.V. Laxminarayana of leaking information and planting stories in one section of the media before affecting the Kadapa MP’s arrest, YSR Congress MLAs staged a dharna in front of Mahatma Gandhi’s statue on the Assembly premises. They released a list of calls made by Mr Laxminarayana to various reporters and also to one Vasireddy Chandrabala, said to be a former techie of Hyderabad.

YSR Congress leaders demanded why the CBI joint director called up media personnel in clear violation of the CBI manual. They also wanted to know who Ms Vasireddy Chandrabala was and why she had called him repeatedly. They alleged that the CBI joint director did not act fairly and had conspired with some parties with vested interests and had arrested Mr Jagan Mohan Reddy a few hours before attending court.

YSR party smells a rat in jail blackout
There was a 12-hour blac-kout on Thursday at the Chanchalguda Central Prison where several high-profile undertrials including Kadapa MP Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy and former minister Mopidevi Venkatramana are lodged. As news of the blackout spread, supporters of the YSR Congress chief started a rumour that it was a conspiracy to eliminate Mr Jagan Mohan Reddy. The power cut was rep-orted in the early hours of Thursday at the prison. Jail officials said one of the phases in the new prison block had developed glitches but power was restored by pulling a line from the old prison block which is empty.

Power problem resolved, says jail in-charge
In-charge superintendent of Chanchalguda prison, Venkateshwar Reddy said, “We immediately addressed the problem by disconnecting the third phase from the old prison block and connecting it to the new prison block which holds all the inmates. The electricity department rectified the problem by Thursday evening. “There was no issue about the security of the inmates, including the special prisoners, being compromised. The charges are baseless.” Mr Jagan’s wife Bharathi Reddy had filed a petition in the HC seeking security for her husband in jail but the authorities had submitted a report stating that security was given to special category prisoners as per norms.