AP Min Botcha, Pawan Kalyan in Twitter duel

Visakhapatnam There seems to be no respite to actor and Jana Sena Party president Pawan Kalyan from the ruling YSRCP with Education Minister Botcha Satyanarayana taking recourse to Twitter to engage in a wordy duel with him over the controversial remarks on human trafficking.

After Chief Minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy slammed the actor for accusing the village/ward volunteers of indulging in data theft paving the way for abduction of 29,000 girls and the State Government issued GO Rt 16 allowing the authorities to prosecute Pawan Kalyan under Section 199 (4) (B) of CrPC, 1973 for making baseless and frivolous allegations aimed at assassinating the character of the volunteers and denting the image of the government, the Minister also preferred to make use of the micro-blogging site to vent out his feelings.

Pawan Kalyan on July 19 at a party meeting at Eluru alleged that the volunteers had committed the theft of information and passing it on vested interests leading to the disappearance of 29,000 girls of which the police had established the whereabouts of 14,000. He claimed he obtained the vital information from sources in the Intelligence Bureau (IB), which is under the administrative control of the Ministry of Home Affairs. After attending the NDA meeting recently, the actor also had a meeting with Home Minister Amit Shah.

In a tweet, Botcha said “Dear @PawanKalyan, from today onwards I will take your tuition but my only condition is that you promise to do your homework! Today’s assignment is to go through these seven lessons thoroughly! Lesson 1: Please know that AP Govt is the ONLY GOVT IN THE WORLD that has GIVEN UP its power to decide the eligibility or scope as far as public procurement tenders are concerned.”

He stated: “Lesson 2: The finalisation of scope and eligibility of any Govt tender above Rs 100 crore is done by a special judge (in this case Justice Shivshankar Rao) appointed with the concurrence of the High Court. Lesson 3: Tender specifications (specs) are put in public domain giving 21 days to companies to comment/react. Post this, the judge takes a call and tender specifications are locked. Lesson 4: We are proud to highlight that ours is the only Government in the world that has a judicial preview thereby ensuring a level playing field to all companies.”

Botcha further hastened to add: “Lesson 5: Also, a basic Google search will give you details of all the companies who engaged with the government for this particular tender (been in public domain since Aug 2022) but sharing the link again so that there is no way you miss it.

Lesson 6: As far as the AP Education sector is concerned, we are proud to say that we are the MOST TRANSPARENT department where results are out there for everyone to see! Lesson 7: I feel sorry for your teachers who must be so ashamed for every attempt you make to mislead the public. But like I said, I am open to give you tuition as long as you promise to be attentive and apply your brains.” Earlier, Pawan Kalyan tweet stated: “No Mega DSC Notification, No Teacher Recruitment, No Teacher Training. But, a loss making startup gets crores of contracts. Has the YCP Govt followed Standard Protocol? How many companies applied for the tender, who were shortlisted? Is it in the Public Domain? YCP GOVT RESPOND!”

“If he has the guts, let Pawan Kalyan produce evidence to substantiate his allegation. Let him also disclose those in IB who informed him about human trafficking in connivance with the volunteers,” Minister for Industries and Commerce Gudivada Amarnath, said.

TDP, the main Opposition in AP with which Pawan Kalyan is hinting at forming an alliance in 2024, came to the rescue of actor accusing the YSRCP resorting to political vendetta by deciding to prosecute him for his remarks after AP Women’s Commission served a notice to the actor immediately after his controversial speech at Eluru.