Kothakota Srinivas Reddy, the IPS officer whose transfer from ACB has triggered a political and public outrage against the government, has got more credit than he really deserved, feel many in the police department.
Srinivas Reddy, who was relieved as Additional Director General of ACB after a series of dramatic developments, has overnight become some kind of hero, perceived as he was by the general public as a victim of political maneuvering.
While there is a lot of meat in the argument that Srinivas Reddy was shunted out of ACB to satisfy the bruised ego of PCC chief Botsa Satyranarayana, it is not entirely true that the case against liquor syndicates was solely dependent on this single officer.
Local reports in Vizianagaram confirm that it was a fact that the Additional DG did insist on incorporating names of Botsa family members in the FIR, which the local CI Ganesh resisted. It was after Reddy reportedly threatened to arrest him that the latter panicked and filed a defamation case against his boss.
The moot question, however, is whether the Additional Director was motivated by his zeal to book the real culprits or whether he was acting at the behest of the Chief Minister.
Whatever was the case, Srinivasa Reddy fully made use of the developments and emerged as a hero. There is now a Facebook page to register protest against the transfer of Srinivas Reddy to coastal security on promotion as Inspector General.
The officer is not particularly known in the past to fight against the bigwigs in the government, but political circumstances elevated his stature, observers who know the goings on in the department say. And the 1994 officer did make use of this opportunity to project himself as a martyr in a public case, they aver.
