Centre cracks whip, TDP eats humble pie over criticism of Governor

Hyderabad: Casting aspersions on Governor to sidetrack the Cash for Votes scam proved costly for the TDP as both the Centre and the Governor reportedly took a serious view of the comments.The Centre, in a strong message to the AP Chief Secretary, asked to end the maligning of a constitutional authority. 

Governor has sent video clippings of the nasty comments made by the ministers to the Union Home Ministry and the centre quickly reacted by speaking its mind to the AP Chief Secretary. On Thursday evening, Union Home Secretary Goyal himself spoke to the Governor over the phone and asked for details. Also all the details with regard to "cash for vote" scam in the form of in a newspaper, TV, video tapes were sent to the Home Ministry.
A stung Chandrababu quickly asked his ministers to avoid comments that are demeaning to the institution of Governor. He sent a directive to his ministers to be careful while making comments and to desist from attacking Governor.
Quickly realising that the strategy of attacking governor backfired, the TDP leadership made amends. Late on Thursday evening, ministers Acchan Naidu and Palle Raghunatha Reddy toned down their attack and even offered mildly worded apologies.
With this, the second plan to divert the issue too boomeranged for the TDP, the first one being the effort to convert the scam into an AP vs Telangana issue. Even the Schedule 8 controversy could not salvage the TDP, which is down in the dumps with the revelations of its top brass being involved in buying votes for its MLC candidate in Telangana.