Vijayawada: Andhra Pradesh Legislative Assembly speaker Tammineni Sitaram referred the notices served by two cabinet ministers to the privilege committee to move privilege motion against the SEC Nimmagadda Ramesh Kumar. He asked the committee to examine the gravity of the charges made by the SEC against the ministers in his letter addressed to the governor and take necessary action.

Panchayat Raj and Rural development minister Peddireddy Rama Chandra Reddy and municipal administration and urban development minister Botsa Satyanarayana sent separate notices to the AP Assembly speaker on Saturday. The two ministers urged the speaker to allow them to move Privilege Motion against the SEC. After deliberation, the Speaker reportedly referred the issue to the Privileges Committee and suggested it to initiate measures after going through the notices served by the ministers.

The ministers in their notices had explained that the SEC made several castigating remarks, “which are libellous in nature and far from the truth”, in the letter reportedly written by him to the governor. The tone and tenor of the letter is intimidating, they said adding the content of the same is being circulated on social media.

The two ministers took exception to a statement reportedly by the SEC that they had crossed the ‘Lakshmana Rekha’, and violated the Model Code of Conduct.  Alleging that Ramesh Kumar had made several baseless allegations with an ulterior motive to degrade them as MLAs and ministers in the public eye, Peddireddy and Botsa said making allegations without proof amounts to breach of privilege.