BRS rejects Bhatti’s claims, says cancellation of tenders itself admission of scam

The BRS on Saturday countered Deputy Chief Minister Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka’s claims on the Naini coal block tender controversy, saying the cancellation of tenders itself proved a major scam. Former Minister T Harish Rao sought an impartial probe into the matter

Hyderabad: The Bharat Rashtra Samithi on Saturday countered the claims of Deputy Chief Minister Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka on the Naini coal block tender controversy and pointed out that the cancellation of the tenders itself was an admission of a major scam.

Former Minister T Harish Rao said Bhatti Vikramarka was beating around the bush and trying to cover up irregularities, without clarifying the actual reason for the cancellation of the tenders. “If no scam or irregularity took place, why were the tenders cancelled?” Harish Rao asked, while also questioning the Energy Minister’s silence over the solar scams that he had exposed on Friday.

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“If the Deputy Chief Minister assures an impartial and transparent investigation into the scam involving Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy and the role of his brother-in-law, I am prepared to write a letter to you seeking a detailed probe,” Harish Rao said in a detailed post on X, soon after the Deputy Chief Minister held a press conference to dismiss allegations of irregularities in the Singareni tenders.

Reiterating that the cancellation of the Naini coal block tenders reflected a scam and was proof of corruption in the entire episode, Harish Rao asked why the Congress government was not cancelling other tenders if all had followed the same procedure. By merely trying to shift the blame for the site visit certificate clause onto the BRS government, the facts would not change. What Bhatti Vikramarka was trying to convey by claiming that the site visit rule was introduced in 2018 and by citing a few Central government institutions as examples, he asked.

Harish Rao also thanked Bhatti Vikramarka for finally admitting that the site visit procedure was implemented in Singareni. “The site visit rule was implemented and the Naini coal tenders were cancelled. Does that not amount to a scam in the entire tender process?” he asked.

Stating that he had immense respect for Bhatti Vikramarka, the former Minister said he had written a letter to the Union Ministry with the intention that an investigation against a person of the Chief Minister’s stature could only be conducted by a sitting judge or a central government probe agency such as the CBI.

“If you assure an impartial probe into the scam involving the Chief Minister and his brother-in-law, I am prepared to write a letter to you as well,” Harish Rao said, responding to the Deputy Chief Minister’s assertion that he would insist on a probe if the BRS leader wrote to him as he had written to the Centre.