Nara Lokesh seeks anticipatory bail in Amaravati Ring Road case

Vijayawada, Sep 27: A day after Andhra Pradesh Police's CID named him as an accused in the Amaravati Inner Ring Road case, Telugu Desam Party (TDP) General Secretary Nara Lokesh approached the High Court for anticipatory bail.

The CID had Tuesday filed a memo in Vijayawada ACB Court on Tuesday, naming Lokesh as an accused in the case.

Lokesh, who is son of TDP supremo and former Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu, has been named as 14th accused in the case.

Naidu is currently under judicial custody in the Skill Development Corporation scam. The CID has already named Naidu as an accused in the Amaravati Inner Ring Road case and AP FiberNet case and filed Prisoner Transit (PT) warrant petitions against him in Vijayawada ACB Court.

Naidu has already filed petitions in the High Court for anticipatory bail in both the cases.

In May 2022, the CID had registered an FIR against Naidu, former Municipal Administration Minister Dr P. Narayana, Heritage Foods Ltd, and others, for alleged irregularities in the construction of an internal ring road in Amaravati.

The FIR was filed based on a complaint from YSR Congress Party (YSRCP) Mangalgiri MLA A. Rama Krishna Reddy. It was alleged that certain illegal and corrupt activities were committed by highly placed government officials between 2014 and 2019 with regard to the design of master plan for the Andhra Pradesh capital and alignment of the ring road to cause wrongful gain to certain individuals.

Heritage Foods is a company owned by Chandrababu Naidu’s family. The ruling party had accused Naidu of large scale irregularities in land acquisition and other aspects in development of the state capital Amaravati. The CID has already stated that it is probing Lokesh’s role in all three scams. The scams allegedly took place when Naidu was the Chief Minister and Lokesh was a minister in his cabinet.

Meanwhile, Lokesh, who has been campaigning in Delhi for the last few days, is returning to Andhra Pradesh. He plans to resume his Yuva Glam padyatra from September 29. Following the arrest of Naidu on September 9, Lokesh had stopped his padyatra in East Godavari district. The TDP General Secretary had launched a 4,000 km padyatra on January 27 to reach out to people. The foot march is scheduled to end in Srikakulam after covering 100 Assembly constituencies in the state.