Tummala Lokeshwara Reddy, advisor to the Andhra Pradesh government on technical projects, was sacked from the post for allegedly poking his nose in the ongoing gram panchayat elections in Kadapa.
Lokeshwar Reddy was forced to resign from the advisor post on Thursday evening, after getting a dressing down from chief minister and YSR Congress president Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy.
An order issued by chief secretary Adityanath Das said Lokeshwar Reddy had tendered his resignation to the post of Advisor to Government on Technical Projects, on his personal reasons and his resignation had been accepted.
Sources, however, said Lokeshwar Reddy, instead of confining himself to the advisor post, tried to enter politics indirectly.
He reportedly fielded his sister-in-law in the sarpanch elections in Upparapalli gram panchayat of Chennur mandal in Kadapa district.
Lokeshwar Reddy made extensive campaign for his sister-in-law using advanced technology available with him in the capacity of the government’s advisor.
This was despite knowing that the contestant in the opposite side is wife of Rajendranath Reddy, a close follower of Kalapuram MLA Ravindranath Reddy, who happens to be Jagan’s own uncle. Naturally, it has angered Jagan and Lokeshwar Reddy had to pay the penalty.
Interestingly, it was Lokeshwar Reddy, who acted as a whistle blower, exposing Telugu Desam Party’s data theft scam in March 2019, before the assembly elections.
He lodged a complaint with the Telangana police against IT Grids (India) Pvt. Ltd and Bluefrog Mobile Technologies Pvt. Ltd, which were allegedly given access by the previous TDP government to the enormous amount of official data in respect of the beneficiaries of various government schemes.
He pointed out that the Chandrababu Naidu government had also provided private data of 3.70 crore voters of AP, including Smart Pulse Survey reports, Aadhaar details, colour photographs of the voters and their mobile numbers too, to the TDP.
The TDP had amalgamated and uploaded the same into the TDP’s Seva Mitra mobile application, to be used by the party cadre for identifying non-TDP voters so that the government can delete their names from electoral rolls based on the voter profiling.
