Amaravati, Sep 9  (IANS): The Telugu Desam Party (TDP) has termed as illegal and political vendetta the arrest of its national president N. Chandrababu Naidu.

The party politburo member, Varla Ramaiah, asked whether the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) officials, who have taken Chandrababu into custody have any kind of evidence or at least the TDP supremo's name is mentioned in the FIR.

Giving the details on the Skill Development Project issue in which the CID officials claim to have taken him into custody, MVarla Ramaiah clarified that a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed with the Skill Development Project in 2015 and the same company entered into agreement with eight states including Gujarat.

Stating that the DesignTech and the Siemens India are partners in the project, Varla Ramaiah pointed out that the State Government has issued an appreciation certificate to DesignTech in 2020. The High Court too released the funds frozen by the CID wing declaring that the funds are not part of this issue at all.

Varla Ramaiah asked when the FIR was registered as far back as in December 2021, what is the need to suddenly bring the matter onto the scene after 18 months. Also, no charge-sheet has been filed yet in this case, he said.

Alleging that several persons were subjected to torture to issue statement against Chandrababu and no one succumbed to their pressure, the TDP politburo member said that even while taking Chandrababu into custody on Saturday, the Deputy Inspector General of Police(DIG) directly entered the scene without any investigating officer and took the TDP supremo into custody.

"This is nothing but a political vendetta against a leader who served the public for four decades, all this drama is only because the YSRCP came to the conclusion that they will not win the coming polls," Varla Ramaiah said.

"Chandrababu is a visionary leader while Jagan was in jail for 16 months in a scam of Rs 42,000 crore who is still on bail," he added.