Hyderabad: Former Andhra Pradesh minister and Congress party leader Mopidevi Venkata Ramana joined the YSR Congress party here yesterday. He took the membership of YSR Congress in presence of party president Y S Jaganmohan Reddy.
Venkata Ramana was released on bail last month after spending more than a year in jail in a disproportionate assets case involving Jaganmohan Reddy.
Talking to reporters, he accused the Congress of using him as a pawn to implicate Jaganmohan Reddy in corruption case and said this was the reason for his quitting the party.
He alleged that the Congress government wanted to arrest a minister in the case and it chose him as he hails from a backward class. The CBI had arrested Venkata Ramana in May 2012. He was serving as the excise minister then, but resigned the next day.
The CBI charged him with violating rules while allotting land and extending some concessions to Vanpic, a mega port and infrastructure project promoted by industrialist Nimmagadda Prasad.
IANS
