The sudden transfer of senior IPS officer N V Surendra Babu from the post of AP State Road Transport Corporation vice-chairman and managing director raised many eyebrows.
Surendra Babu had been considered one of the meritorious police officers in the combined Andhra Pradesh and held several positions including the head of Octopus to take up counter-terrorism operations, chief of Grey Hounds and commissioner of Vijayawada city police.
However, he was dubbed as a favourite officer of Telugu Desam Party president and former chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu because of caste equations. This, naturally, turned out to be a negative factor in the YSR Congress party regime.
There were allegations that Surendra Babu had resisted the attempts of the chief minister to merge the RTC with the state government, as it involved the centre’s approval.
He apparently delayed the merger proposal and finally, the government took a decision to merge the employees with the government, while retaining the RTC.
Some sections also alleged that it was Surendra Babu who had given the green signal for the sale of RTC bus tickets having advertisements of the TDP government schemes on the backside of the tickets in Nellore division, that led to the controversy in Tirumala as the tickets had publicity about other religions.
And he was also accused of leaking important documents from the RTC to the TDP leaders so as to make them wild allegations against the Jagan government. Hence, he was transferred, say these sources.’
However, the TDP leaders say Surendra Babu was unceremoniously shunted out of the RTC and was not given any posting, as he strongly opposed the Jagan government’s attempt to hire electric buses from a private firm, which is a sister concern of Megha Engineering.
Apparently, the firm is charging a very high rate of Rs 60 per kilometre, whereas Surendra Babu said the RTC would not pay more than Rs 36 per kilometre. Following the controversy, he was shifted out of the RTC.
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