The former state chief minister of Andhra Pradesh Chandrababu Naidu was arrested in the early hours of Saturday by the state Criminal Investigation Department (CID) over an alleged Andhra Pradesh State Skill Development Corporation (APSDC) corruption scam.
Telugu Desam Party (TDP) chief was arrested around 6 am from R K Function Hall at Gnanapuram in the Nandyala district of the state, meanwhile, many high-profile TDP politicians were put on house arrest over fear of protest.
In APSDC in 2016 signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) worth INR 33 billion ($397 million). This MoU involved a consortium with Siemens Industry Software India Ltd and Design Tech Systems Pvt Ltd.
However, upon suspicion of the project manager, Siemens Global Corporate Office initiated an internal inquiry into the project and found that the project manager had misappropriated the government-allocated funds to shell companies involved in hawala transactions.
Subsequently, it came to light that the project had been launched without adhering to a formal tendering process, circumventing the necessary approval from state cabinet ministers. Astonishingly, the state government disbursed hundreds of millions of rupees to multiple shell companies.state cabinet ministers approval and the state government allocated hundreds of millions of rupees to various shell companies.
Meanwhile, upon the arrest, Naidu denied all the allegations and said, “CID arrested me without any proper information and I asked them to show the evidence, but they refused to show and attached my name to the FIR without my role.”
N Chandrababu Naidu
© Photo : Twitter/@ncbn
High Alert In Andhra Pradesh
To ensure utmost safety, extra police personnel have been deployed at various public locations, including bus and railway stations, as well as the residences of Telugu Desam Party (TDP) politicians.The state government bus service was also suspended across the state.