Amravathi: Stepping up his attack over the alleged data theft issue, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu on Thursday called the Centre and the Telangana government economic terrorists and accused them of filing cases and causing "mental torture".
Pointing to the registration of case against an IT firm in Hyderabad for alleged theft of data of voters in Andhra Pradesh through a mobile app of ruling TDP, he termed it as a case against the state government and asserted he would protect the sovereign rights of his state.
Addressing a press conference, Naidu alleged that the Centre and the Telangana governments were striking at the economic roots.
"Both the Government of India and the Telangana government are working as terrorists, economic terrorists. They are causing mental torture and killing the leadership. This is atrocious...attacking persons, foisting cases, terrorising them... who gave you this authority?" he asked.
Naidu said the Centre had betrayed the people of Andhra Pradesh for last five years; if the state government asks for something, they answer with an ED or I-T raid, alleged Naidu.
Criticising the Telangana government's probe over data breach, Naidu said,“They have stolen my party’s data, they dismantled my service providers. It is a designed plan. The vendetta is for my state. They have stolen my data and handed it over to the Opposition. At the same time they are blaming the state government for data breach? Who are you to blame? I am here to protect my data. We are very clear having 65 lakh cadre data. Only service and education and insurance are monitored. This is a serious crime.”
The Andhra CM urged the EC to intervene in the matter.
“They have deleted some votes by using form 7, that itself is a crime. We request EC that nobody should venture to delete genuine voters. It is a big crime and I request for an immediate action," said Naidu.
Asking why the Telangana government was having so much "love for me and our state", Naidu claimed Telangana owed Rs 5,000 crore to AP on power supply and had not given its properties (after the bifurcation).
Alleging that the Telangana Chief Minister was acting hand-in-glove with the YSR Congress president Y S Jaganmohan Reddy, he asked if both of them wanted to "burn down" Andhra Pradesh.
“What is your intention? Both of you want to burn down the state? I will not let that happen till my last breath. I will fight it out. No question of compromise,” the TDP supremo said.
Stating that AP was an independent government, the Chief Minister said he would protect its sovereign rights.
“Today Telangana, tomorrow Karnataka will do, Tamil Nadu will do, Odisha will do. What is your intention? If anybody files case against a state government where are we going? Where is the Constitution? Doing wrong things for political gains is not right," he added.
Naidu claimed that there was no blemish on him in his 40-year political career. Now they are slinging mud on me. Causing mental torture, he alleged.
Earlier this week, Naidu had alleged Reddy was involved in 'cyber conspiracy (data theft issue)' and Prashant Kishor was giving "such ill advice" to YSRC.
The TDP and TRS are locked in a war of words since the case was registered on March 2 against the IT firm for alleged theft of data of voters through "Seva Mitra" mobile app, used by the TDP in Andhra Pradesh.
Cyberabad police in Hyderabad had conducted searches at the firm and claimed to have seized several "incriminating" material, including computer hard discs.
A special investigation team has been constituted to probe the case.
Police have issued notices to Amazon Web Services and Google Play as they were said to have stored the app database in their servers.
The TDP government has dismissed the charge of data theft and sought transfer of the case from Telangana to Andhra Pradesh while Naidu has accused BJP and TRS of helping YSRC.
TRS working president K T Rama Rao had said Telangana police was only probing the charges as per a complaint and asked Naidu why he should fear a probe if he had not done anything wrong.
