AMARAVATI: Andhra Pradesh Government Chief Whip Gadikota Srikanth Reddy said that the fasting TDP leader Palla Srinivas was taken to Hospital on humanitarian grounds on Tuesday. Addressing a press conference here on the Visakhapatnam Steel Plant (VSP) issue, Srikanth Reddy said that Palla Srinivas who was on fast was taken to hospital on humanitarian grounds as he was recently recovered from Covid and criticised opposition leader N Chandrababu Naidu for politicising the issue. He challenged Naidu to send his son Lokesh or MVVS Murthy's grandson to sit on a hunger strike instead of Palla. He questioned why Chandrababu was silent on privatization of VSP between 2014-19, while he was in NDA which brought forward the privatization plan.

'' Chandrababu has no moral right to speak in Visakhapatnam or set his foot in the city that he opposed as executive capital,'' he said. Speaking further he said that Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy had written a letter to the Prime Minister requesting to drop privatisation plans, but Chandrababu on the other hand was afraid of writing to the Prime Minister fearing that he would be in trouble. During TDP term, Naidu had privatised 54 public sector companies and even tried to put APSRTC on sale. Unlike Chandrababu, Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy had merged RTC with the government and put it back on profits. He assured that the State government will go to any extent to save VSP.

The YSRCP leader slammed Chandrababu Naidu for spreading fake news on panchayat poll results, though TDP was rejected by the people in Panchayat polls. He said that TDP has secured less than 15 percent of the seats but the TDP members themselves are distorting the numbers and trying to divert people ahead of municipal polls. YSRCP has been officially displaying the details of the candidates won with the support of the party on YSRCPPolls.in website including their pictures, he said and challenged Chandrababu to reveal real numbers.

The MLA said that people have rejected TDP in 2019 and those who have voted then have realised their mistake and shifted to YSRCP as welfare schemes touched all sections of people. He said that Chandrababu does not have the courage to admit defeat, and was making shameless arguments alleging that counting was done in the dark and shifting stance on SEC.