BRS-era aides on government radar
HYDERABAD: Amid rising concerns over the unauthorised disclosure of sensitive information, the state government has launched an internal review to identify private individuals from the previous Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) regime who continue to serve in key ministerial offices under the current Congress administration.
According to high-level sources, the Chief Minister's Office (CMO) has directed the state intelligence department to compile a detailed record of personnel working in the offices of all Cabinet ministers. The focus is on identifying private aides — particularly personal assistants (PAs), private secretaries (PSs), public relations officers (PROs) and other support staff — who have either remained in their posts or been reappointed despite the change in government.
The move follows repeated incidents where internal documents and policy decisions surfaced on social media and Opposition-affiliated platforms before their official release. Officials suspect that individuals retained from the BRS government may be leaking information to their former political networks.
One example cited is Revenue and Housing Minister Ponguleti Srinivasa Reddy's office, where his current PA, Venkat Reddy, also served as PA to former finance minister T Harish Rao during the BRS tenure. Similarly, Forests and Environment Minister Konda Surekha's PA, P Krishna, is a holdover from the previous regime. Several PROs across ministries are also said to fall into this category.
Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy, sources say, was initially opposed to re-employing staff from the previous government. However, some ministers opted to retain or reappoint their preferred aides, exercising discretion in these appointments.
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In a column titled 'A democratic revolution' (January 5, 1969), she wrote, 'There is the continually shocking fact that the party, which was in its great days dedicated to austerity and symbolised a crusade, has come down to horsetrading and all the tinsel paraphernalia of self-aggrandisement.' Sahgal, who was perhaps the first woman political columnist in English in India, also sounded a warning against Indira's cult of personality. 'The mass rallies arranged daily at her residence are more characteristic of the unwholesome propaganda to project a Hitler or a Mussolini than an elected leader of a representative government. A popular leader has no need of such contrivances' (September 7, 1969). The resultant breach with Indira, with whom she grew up at Anand Bhawan in Allahabad, was difficult. 'It was terrible. We were close cousins. I dearly loved her and I was her favourite cousin, so it was very difficult. 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'We were one family. I had a relationship with both Rajiv and Sanjay, with Rajiv it continued,' says Sahgal. She didn't see Indira after the Emergency but wrote to her when Sanjay died. 'I am in touch with Sonia.' Much as she had seen the Emergency coming, Sahgal also anticipated that it wouldn't last long. 'They wanted to keep themselves popular with the West and an Emergency is the wrong thing to do in those circumstances,' says Sahgal. After the Emergency was over, she was part of the Varghese Commission, which was formed to review the autonomy of All India Radio (AIR) and Doordarshan (DD) in 1977-78. To Sahgal, a founding member of the People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), the imposition of the Emergency was an assault on the idea of India, a betrayal of her legacy. 'To people like us, India was an idea. I once called it a glittering idea in our imagination. It was something special, unlike the dictatorships we saw around us. So to have that tarnished in any way was very hurtful in a very personal way because that was not our India. Such things didn't happen in our India,' she says.
