Chandrababu’s Betrayal Of Promises To BCs

Kommineni Srinivasa Rao

The mistakes of Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu's government led to many groups staying away from him. It was not just political groups even social groups kept away from TDP. Latest in the list of avoiding TDP was the BC community which is indignant with Chandrababu.

Politically, Janasena President Pawan Kalyan made a spate of accusations and the TDP, Chandrababu as well as his son Lokesh, and broke the alliance with TDP. On other hand, the TDP deserted BJP supposedly on the issue of Special Category Status to AP. Though Chandrababu compromised on the SCS and agreed to Special Package, after realising that the credit for SCS might go to YSRCP, he changed his stance and broke the alliance with BJP. Everyone was of the belief that the TDP rode the wave of BJP and Janasena and won the elections and now both have deserted the ruling party.

Coming to social groups, Chandrababu did not keep his promise of providing reservations to Kapu community and as a response to this, two years ago former minister Mudragadda Padmanabham staged a protest. He and his family had to face severe humiliation. The government went to the extent of blocking television channels that were broadcasting the Kapu agitation taken up by Mudragadda. These factors led to severe alienation from Kapu community. Finally, the government had to bow down to their demands and establish a Kapu Welfare Corporation. If only Chandrababu had done this before Mudragadda's protest, he would have got credit for the corporation, but unfortunately it was clearly seeing as a move to pacify the community. However, funds as promised have been not released to the corporation.

Above all, he made vain announcements in the assembly that the government has fulfilled the promise with respect to the Kapu community. The other important aspect is that there is opposition from certain BC groups to the Kapus. As per the BC community leaders, they are unhappy with TDP government because none of the promises made in election manifesto have been implemented. Even as the community was boiling with anger against Chandrababu, Justice Eshwaraiah’s letter has added fuel to fire and has had a seismic effect on the TDP. In his letter Justice Eshwaraiah stated that Chandrababu had written a letter to the central government recommending the holding back of appointments of two BC lawyers and a Brahmin lawyer as Judges. Chandrababu has also made several accusations against the lawyers which included sexual harassment.

Appointment of Judges would become a difficult task when accusations are made on the persons who are to become Judges. And if the accusations were made by none other than a state Chief Minister, it is all the more difficult. But the Centre acted judiciously on this occasion and got Intelligence Bureau to inquire the accusations. IB came up with a report saying that the the accusations in Chandrababu's letter were false. Chandrababu's letter was brushed aside by the Centre to appoint BC lawyers and Brahmin lawyers as Judges. If only Chandrababu was confident about his accusations on the persons he would have written another letter to Centre, but he has not done so. What does this indicate?

But Chandrababu who is a master of turning things to his favour, said that there was a conspiracy being hatched to portray his party as anti-downtrodden. It is being said that Chandrababu’s letter was nothing but an insult to the BC community. Moreover, yet another promise that was not fulfilled is to include segments in BC community into SC and ST categories.

The fact is there is no BC minister in TDP government and nobody had the audacity to question Chandrababu. Even a senior leader like Yanamala Ramakrishnudu was happy serving his master and not bothered about anything else. These ministers were being branded as politicians purely interested in their posts and not the welfare of their community. This was the reason TDP Chief and Yanamala were trying to misguide people by not answering to the points raised by Justice Eshwaraiah.