Fact Sheet: TD cadre not believing Babu!

It is not the voter who is not believing Telugu Desam supremo and former chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu these days. Guess who are not believing what Chandrababu Naidu says? None other than the Telugu Desam cadre. Chandrababu Naidu had opposed several populist schemes when he was in power for nine long years. He conducted training classes for the party cadre on several occasions to drive home his point that the populist schemes which then Opposition Congress was promising were simply impracticable.

Now that he himself is in the opposition, Chandrababu Naidu feels that these populist schemes, which he once opposed, are quite practicable. This he learnt after the Congress government successfully implemented them.

So Chandrababu Naidu's promises -- as many as a dozen and a half -- have failed to go well into the cadre. The party activists are looking at Chandrababu Naidu with suspicion. How could a person who once opposed is now supporting the very things. Sources point out that Chandrababu Naidu will first convince his party workers before going to the voters with the populist agenda. Let's wait and see how far Chandrababu Naidu will succeed in this Herculean task.

Convincing voters is an easy task because of the most of them are illiterate and act like herds. But the TD activists are an enlightened lot now that Chandrababu Naidu had conducted several training classes for them with experts from various fields.

Fact Sheet: YSR uses Kaka against VH!

Chief Minister Dr Y S Rajasekhar Reddy is trying all his tricks to prevent Rajya Sabha member V Hanumantha Rao from becoming the Pradesh Congress Committee president.

YSR came to know that Hanumantha Rao is playing his BC card to impress upon the newly appointed AICC incharge of AP affairs Veerappa Moily (who also happens to be a BC) to become the PCC president. If VH is given the post, he would certainly be like a thorn in the flesh for YSR and therefore, the latter is desperate in preventing VH.

So, he cleverly used the good offices of veteran Congress MP and Congress Working Committee member G Venkatswamy and also that of former Chief Minister N Janardhan Reddy with the high command to scuttle the chances of Hanumantha Rao. Both the MPs told Madam Sonia Gandhi that VH would not be in a position to lead the entire team of Congress leaders because of his inconsistent stand. If the high command wants only a BC leader to be the PCC president and not a Mala (Mallu Ravi) or Madiga (Nandi Yellaiah), the chance could be given to D Srinivas, who led the party to success in 2004 elections, they told her. Sonia did not make any comment and reserved her decision, New Delhi sources say.

Fact Sheet: Satyam takes govt for a ride!

Satyam group's Ramalinga Raju is one of the few industrialists in the State who could continue to get patronage from the State government, irrespective of the party in power – whether it was Chandrababu Naidu's Telugu Desam or Y S Rajasekhar Reddy's Congress.

Raju, who is the richest industrialist in the State, has taken the government for a ride by entering into an agreement with it on running the Emergency Medicare Services by name "108." Though it is an excellent scheme providing emergency medical facilities like ambulance service with sofisticated equipment, it is said to be one of the schemes of Raju to avoid payment of income tax to the government.

According to sources, Raju had to pay highest amount of income tax (about Rs 45 crore) in a single year because of the huge profits Satyam made a couple of years ago. To avoid this, Raju started the Emergency Medicare Service, signed an MoU with the government to run it as a charitable and service organisation and got exemption from the income tax. Above all, he got the government land at a concessional rate on the city outskirts to run this project, employed staff at huge salaries and gained all the benefits associated with it, apart from avoiding the income tax.

After getting the benefits, Raju quietly handed over the project to the State government and retained a nominal percentage in it. YSR, as is his won't, named it after "Rajiv Gandhi." The project will continue to be run by the Satyam group only, but for the name and the State government's emblem. Two birds at one shot!!