Stepping up his tirade over the alleged data theft issue, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu Thursday called the Centre and the Telangana government economic terrorists and accused them of foisting cases and causing "mental torture".
Addressing a press conference here, Naidu alleged the Centre and the Telangana governments were striking at the economic roots.
"Both the Government of India and the Telangana government are working as terroristseconomic terrorists. They are causing mental torture and killing the leadership. This is atrocious...attacking persons, foisting cases, terrorising them... who gave you this authority? he asked.
Attacking his Telangana counterpart K Chandrasekhar Rao, the Naidu questioned what was his connection with Andhra Pradeh and how the case was registered.
...Why are you interfering? In what way you are concerned? You will come and threaten us. You stole our data and on top of it you file a case against our government! Under which Section (of law) did the Telangana government raid and file the case (against an IT firm in Hyderabad). Where are you going? Where is your government going, he asked.
The Andhra government had already made it clear that none of its information was lost, he said.
Asking why the Telangana government was having so much "love for me and our state", Naidu claimed Telangana owed Rs 5,000 crore to AP on power supply and had not given its properties (after the bifurcation).
Alleging that the Telangana Chief Minister was acting hand-in-glove with the YSR Congress president Y S Jaganmohan Reddy, he asked if both of them wanted to "burn down" Andhra Pradesh.
What is your intention? Both of you want to burn down the state? I will not let that happen till my last breath. I will fight it out. No question of compromise, the TDP supremo asserted.
Stating that AP was an independent government, the Chief Minister said he would protect its sovereign rights.
Today Telangana, tomorrow Karnataka will do, Tamil Nadu will do, Odisha will do. What is your intention? If anybody files case against a state governmentwhere are we going? Where is the Constitution? Doing wrong things for political gains is not right, he added.
Claiming that he was working for a cause, Naidu said there was no blemish on him in his 40-year political career. Now they are slinging mud on me. Causing mental torture, he alleged.
Slamming Jaganmohan Reddy, he said the YSRC leader and JDU leader Prashanth Kishore "have descended on the state like dacoits."
In Bihar law and problem is big problem. Dacoit politics. In south India its largely systematic. Now they want to do such politics in AP and destabilise the state. Thats their plan, he alleged.
Earlier this week, Naidu had alleged Reddy was involved in 'cyber conspiracy (data theft issue)' and Kishore was giving "such ill advice" to YSRC.
The TDP and TRS are locked in a war of words since the case was registered on March 2 against the IT firm for alleged theft of data of voters through "Seva Mitra" mobile app, used by the TDP in Andhra Pradesh.
Cyberabad police in Hyderabad had conducted searches at the firm and claimed to have seized severeal "incriminating" materials, including computer hard discs. A special investigation team has been constituted to probe the case.
Police have issued notices to Amazon Web Services and Google Play as they were said to have stored the app database in their servers.
The TDP government has dismissed the charge of data theft and sought transfer of the case from Telangana to Andhra Pradesh while Naidu has accused BJP and TRS of helping YSRC.
TRS working president K T Rama Rao had said Telangana police was only probing the charges as per a complaint and asked Naidu why he should fear a probe if he had not done anything wrong.
(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)