An elderly woman has been arrested for impersonating former Union Secretary with the Ministry of Health K Sujatha Rao on Monday. Peddada Vijayalakshmi, who is nearly 70 years old, had visited a hospital in Andhra Pradesh’s Krishna district, claiming she was Sujatha Rao and tried to collect money from the hospital management. Sujatha Rao is a retired IAS officer who has worked in the health sector extensively, having served as Director General of National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO) and as the Health Secretary with the Andhra Pradesh government.
She is also the daughter of former Union Irrigation Minister KL Rao, who hailed from Krishna district.
According to Hanuman Junction police, Vijayalakshmi had visited the Sitamahalakshmi Nursing Home in Hanuman Junction town of Krishna district on the evening of August 8. Claiming that she was retired bureaucrat Sujatha Rao and was a committee member of the Aarogyasri Health Care Trust, she reportedly asked the hospital to pay her Rs 3,500 for rituals to be conducted at the Tirumala temple, as she was on her way there.
However, the owner of the nursing home, Dutta Ramachandra Rao, had previously been associated with the Aarogyasri Trust in the past himself, and was also acquainted with Sujatha Rao. Finding Vijayalakshmi’s behaviour suspicious, Ramachandra Rao’s son Dutta Ravi Shankar made a phone call to Sujatha Rao, blowing her cover, police said.
The police said that she got away from the hospital on that day, but was later arrested in Vijayawada on Monday by police personnel attached to the Nuzvid sub-division, based on a complaint from Ravi Shankar.
Nuzvid DySP (Deputy Superintendent of Police) Srinivasulu told the media that police inquiry had revealed that Vijayalakshmi had allegedly impersonated Sujatha Rao in the past, in Nandigama town of Krishna district, and in Hyderabad, to swindle people.
“During the elections, she had collected money from small time leaders in the Kukatpally area (of Hyderabad), in exchange for canvassing for them,” the DySP said. He also alleged that she collected money from a few local leaders in Nandigama, for erecting a statue of Sujatha Rao’s father KL Rao.
Last year, The Hindu had reported a similar incident, where a woman impersonating Sujatha Rao had collected Rs 5,000 from the family of filmmaker Mohan Krishna Indraganti for medical expenses. The report also said that the woman had been impersonating Sujatha Rao for six years and had swindled large amounts of money from people in Vijayawada Parliamentary constituency on the pretext of building a memorial for K L Rao.
Vijayalakshmi was booked under Sections 419 (Punishment for cheating by personation) and 420 (Cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). She has now been released on bail and sent to her home in Mangalagiri town.
According to YSRCP mouthpiece Sakshi, Dutta Ramachandra Rao is a member of the Hanuman Junction YSRCP Political Advisory Committee. In a video, Vijayalakshmi can be heard telling reporters that she was being held by the police because the complaint was from YSRCP members, and because she was a ‘fan’ of TDP chief Chandrababu Naidu.
Image Credit: Facebook/Sujatha Rao Kanuru and YouTube/Sakshi TV
Watch: Nuzvid DySP addressing media on the case of impersonation of reitred bureaucrat Sujatha Rao