Cong targeting me for leaving party: Jagan

YSR Congress chief YS Jaganmohan Reddy on Monday accused the Congress of a witch-hunt because he had left the party and of maligning his late father, YS Rajasekhara Reddy.

YSR Congress chief YS Jaganmohan Reddy on Monday accused the Congress of a witch-hunt because he had left the party and of maligning his late father, YS Rajasekhara Reddy.

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The MP from Kadapa also announced that he would challenge in the Supreme Court the Andhra Pradesh high court order of a probe by Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) into his alleged illegal assets.

Addressing a section of the television media, Jagan, as he is known, hit out at the Congress for targeting him for leaving the party and denied allegations that he misused power to amass huge wealth when his father was the chief minister.

The young leader also rubbished the allegations that the investments into his companies were made as a quid pro quo arrangement in return for favours that his father had shown to the investors.

Jagan alleged that the Congress had unleashed income tax and other agencies against him after he quit the party in November last year and later through a minister who filed a case against him in the court.

"It is all because they don't want a man who has left the Congress party to come back to power in the state," he said.

"This is the first time in the country that a dead man is being attacked," Jagan remarked while referring to allegations against his father YSR, who died in a helicopter crash in 2009.

Defending YSR, Jagan said the decisions to allot land or provide other benefits were taken by the entire cabinet.

Denying that he ever influenced any decision of the government, Jagan said he never visited the chief minister's camp office or the secretariat. "In fact, you should ask the likes of Ahmed Patel (political secretary of Congress president Sonia Gandhi) as to how many times they called up the chief minister to influence the decisions."

Claiming that it was because of his father that the Congress came to power in 2004 and retained it in 2009 both in the state and at the centre, Jagan said a man who did so much for the party was being targeted and maligned two years after his death.

"Just because my dad is no longer alive and because I have left Congress party, they are using the power to target a helpless and a young man, who has no backing of anybody," said Jagan.