Defaulted leaders to cough up dues - TeluguPeople.com News

NEW DELHI: Andhra Pradesh Bhavan in New Delhi is always found buzzing with activity all through the year with several political leaders from the State visiting the national capital stay there for days together.

However, many of them do not bother to pay for their stay. Now, with elections to the State Assembly and Lok Sabha round the corner, the officials of the AP Bhavan have launched a special drive to recover money due from leaders of various political parties for utilizing its facilities.

An amount of Rs 8.12 lakh has been collected so far. The elections have given a golden opportunity to the AP Bhavan officials to recover the dues. This is the time for leaders to clear their dues. Otherwise, they would run into technical problems while filing nominations for the elections.

AP Bhavan officials say that some of the dues have been pending since 1992. On many occasions, the leaders from the State, who avail of the accommodation and other facilities at AP Bhavan, do not bother to clear the dues on time.

Post-bifurcation, AP Bhavan has been given to Andhra Pradesh State. The officials have now swung into action to recover the pending dues as the issue would get complicated once the two States come into existence.

A special drive has thus been launched. And, it is yielding good results so far. According to sources, the AP Bhavan officials sent the list of the leaders and their dues to their respective party offices.

Some leaders were informed about their dues over phone.They told the leaders that an application was received under Right to Information Act (RTI) and revelation of their names might cause embarrassment to them. This had the desired effect. A Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) leader paid all the dues promptly and obtained 'no due' certiicate.

However, leaders of Congress and Telugu Desam Party are yet to fall in line. A Rajya Sabha member paid Rs 7.15 lakhs which was due since 1992 and he is now contesting the Assembly election.

Another Rajya Sabha member KVP Ramachandra Rao has to pay Rs 1.13 lakh dues. He was supposed to pay a bill of Rs 3.09 lakhs for 340 days from April 14, 2009 to March 20, 2014. However, the Centre's estates department paid Rs 1.95 crore.

Former Minister B Satyanarayana has about Rs 1.16 lakh dues against his account. Former Telugu Desam Party MP N Harikrishna has Rs 59,200 and former Congress MP Girish Kumar Sanghi is yet to clear the dues to the tune of Rs 2.29 lakhs.

On the whole, a total of Rs 26.44 lakhs is due from leaders and so far Rs 8.12 lakhs has been collected. The officials have to settle the accounts by May 15 as Telangana and Andhra Pradesh States would be formed on June 2.

During 11th Lok Sabha period, about Rs 13.03 lakhs was due while 12th Lok Sabha accounted for Rs 2.25 lakhs dues, 13th Lok Sabha Rs 4.14 lakhs and for 14th Lok Sabha Rs 1.24 lakhs.

Leaders of Congress and Telugu Desam, V Ramesh, P Sunitha, SV Sathish Kumar, Samantakamani, M Kishen Reddy, R Prabhakar, A Narsa Reddy, Meenakshi Naidu, D Uma Maheswara Rao, Y Srinivasa Rao and others.