Ambati challenges Pawan

Will resign if graft charges are proved
PNS|Vijayawada

Minister for Water Resources Ambati Rambabu has said that he will resign if anyone proved that he had accepted Rs 2 lakh commission for the compensation granted to the families of the farmers who committed suicide.

Addressing a press meet here on Tuesday, he said that Jana Sena Party chief Pawan Kalyan, acting as a proxy party for Telugu Desam, visited Sattenapalli constituency recently and made baseless allegations that Ambati Rambabu was taking bribes for the compensation for farmers’ kin. He said that he had challenged Pawan to prove the allegations, but PK ran away.

The minister explained that after YSRC came to power, 12 farmers committed suicide in five mandals of Sattenapalli constituency. A compensation of Rs 7 lakh was allotted to each family. Pawan Kalyan did not have the courage to take up the challenge. Jana Sena and TD cadres were circulating a video clip distorting facts.

Minister Rambabu further said that on August 20, a building owner named Kandakatla Kondala Rao called two workers to clean the septic tank on the premises of New Vinayaka restaurant building in Sattenapalli.

Both the workers and the building owner died after inhaling poisonous gas during the cleaning work. The Jana Sena and Telugu Desam trolled the videos of the parents of one of the deceased. They are spreading lies by linking the septic tank belonging to a private person to tenant farmers. It has nothing to do with compensation for farmers’ suicides, he explained.

The Water Resources Minister said that on the day of the incident, the relatives of those who died in the septic tank accident demanded compensation. They would not allow the body of the owner of the building to be shifted. As the families of the deceased workers did not have money even to conduct their last rites, local party leaders arranged Rs. 5 lakh as immediate compensation from the family of the building owner. As a minister, he assured them of providing a compensation of Rs 5 lakh each from the government, the efforts for which were on. “This mess has nothing to do with farmers’ suicides, but the Jana Sena leaders are making false accusations. The allegation of collecting Rs 2.50 lakh for compensation is totally false,” he added.