Hyderabad, April 7
Call it the Anna effect. The corruption-busters are attracting instant public following. The latest to join the hallowed circle is a senior IPS officer in Andhra Pradesh, K Srinivas Reddy, who has been moved out of the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) after unearthing a massive liquor scam.

Ever since the Congress government shifted him from the ACB to the virtually defunct post of Inspector General, Coastal Security wing, this 1994 batch IPS officer has become a symbol of the fight against corruption. As the chief of a special investigation team of ACB, Reddy led the drive against the powerful liquor syndicate and exposed its nexus with politicians, police and the media. The political compulsions forced the government to transfer him, ignoring the opposition’s protests. Now, the social media has taken up his cause.

A Facebook page - Support Anti-Corruption Officer K Srinivas Reddy - has been created by his admirers. The FB page contains details of the phone numbers of the Chief Minister’s Office (CMO) and email id of the ACB Director General so that the people can send in their comments and views. The page already started receiving a large number of hits. Several Facebook users pledged their support for the campaign against corruption and pleaded for retaining honest and upright officers like Srinivas Reddy in key positions to help eradicate the menace of corruption.

Though a delegation of the opposition parties asked the Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy not to succumb to political pressure, he had ordered the transfer of official, apparently under pressure from the Central leadership.

The decision was widely seen as a move to “pacify” state Congress president B Satyanarayana whose name had prominently figured in the scandal covering illegal liquor trade. Satyanarayana, who has a running feud with the Chief Minister, had complained to the party high command that the ACB was deliberately targeting him to defame him and his family at the instance of the Chief Minister.

The political observers say that the official has been made a “scapegoat” in the interests of a “temporary truce” in the political battle between Chief Minister and the PCC chief.