Hyderabad: An egg puff row has taken over Andhra Pradesh political circles, where speculation is rife on claims that the office of former Andhra Pradesh chief minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy raised a bill with the state government for Rs 3.60 crore towards the alleged purchase of egg puffs for visitors to his residential estate at Tadepalli near Mangalagiri in Guntur district during his tenure in office from 2019 to 2024.
The TDP has claimed that at Rs 20 a puff, the chief minister’s office sent a bill to the finance department for 18 lakh pieces. The expenditure worked out to Rs 72 lakh per annum, Rs 6 lakh per month or Rs 20,000 per day on just this single item. The daily consumption would then come to an average of 993 puffs.
Local Telugu Desam Party (TDP) leaders who protested the Jagan government’s splurging of public money for such an expense also claimed that another Rs 72 lakh was spent on the purchase of vegetable puffs, but this was not backed by official confirmation.
The leaders threatened to demand an inquiry into the ‘egg puff scandal’ and recover the money from YSR Congress.
The YSR Congress reacted by saying that its rivals were spreading a baseless rumour to malign the party. Expressing shock, the party said it was a blot on journalism to turn its rivals’ campaign into news stories.
Perni Nani, a former YSR Congress minister, has demanded that the TDP prove the charge against his party.
Rajkumar, another YSR Congress leader, accused journalists of running a slanderous campaign against the party.
The issue has come to the fore against the backdrop of another whopping bill for Rs 1.35 crore said to have been met to catch rats at Jagan’s estate.
Another Rs 32 lakh was spent on supplying lemonade to the crowd that turned up for the inauguration by Jagan of a housing colony constructed by the Andhra Pradesh Township and Infrastructure Development Corporation at Gudivada last year.
Jagan was also accused of spending heavily on the enhancement of security by fencing and posting hundreds of police personnel at his residential estate. He also had an ultra-luxurious building constructed for himself at the government’s cost at the picturesque Rishikonda near Visakhapatnam.
His private tours and pleasure trips by helicopter and special flights were a huge financial burden on the government.
The ‘egg puff fiasco’ has attracted strong public reaction.
While his estate had a huge workforce of staff and officers, the premises did not receive many visitors. Official meetings there were also few and far in between.
Senior journalist Jagadish Prasad said there were very few visitors to Jagan’s estate as people were often denied access to it. The road opposite the estate was closed to normal traffic and heavily barricaded, and “even VVIPs like film star Chiranjeevi had to walk all the way from the gate at the compound wall,” he noted.
The estate was fortified with security even though Jagan did not have threats to his life. He did not have reason to fear Naxalite attacks as the menace had largely subsided during his rule, unlike in present chief minister Chandrababu Naidu’s earlier terms in office, Prasad said.
Note: In an earlier version of this story, a reference was made to an RTI response which the reporter has been unable to verify. Accordingly, all references to this RTI have been deleted.
