Rudrampet Bypass, Anantapur District: Today Pakkeerappa, a 103 year-old man from Kurukunta Colony, met me. He has not been getting his pension. He has 14 children. It is the daily wages they earn that ensure two morsels a day for him.

“If only I could get some pension, I could lessen some of their burden,” he says with a voice tinged with sadness. For years, he has been making rounds of the MPDO office for getting a pension sanctioned, but to no avail. If the government is so insensitive to the plight of a centenarian, the less said about the others, the better.

I recall that during the nine-year stint of Chandrababu Naidu, pension would be sanctioned only when some pension beneficiary passed away. It appears to me that those days have come back to haunt us again. What else could one possibly say if a 103-year-old person does not get his pension! There are countless complaints about pensions relating to the elderly, widows and disabled. The worst possible line of reasoning to deny pension is to brand someone as a YSRCP voter or anti-TDP person. Even if one fulfils all criteria of eligibility, such an individual is denied pension on suspicion of being a YSRCP supporter! Can government action be based on such suspicions?

Today, I visited the visually impaired women’s ashram in Kurukunta, which houses about 25 women there. Lakshminarayana, himself a visually-challenged individual, looks after them with the benevolent support of a few government servants. Sadly, he does not get any help from the government and is often forced to spend from his pocket. He hopes to light up the lives of some more visually challenged individuals if only he gets some support. I was deeply moved by this lofty aim of his and assured him of all help. I was moved by the affection of the visually-challenged women and their eagerness to shake hands with me.

Students pursuing nursing courses met me at Akkampalli Cross. They are pained that the nursing students are being looked down upon. Taking up such a noble profession of serving the ill and the afflicted is commendable. A little more support will help them shine in their profession. All they want is a permanent job to be able to serve patients with sincerity and commitment. The radiant faces of these girls mirrored their hopes for a better future.

Finally, I have a question for the Chief Minister. Every day, I have been meeting hundreds of deserving persons who are being denied welfare pensions. At this rate, the actual number of eligible persons who are deprived of pensions must be staggering. Putting two and two together, would it not be accurate to say that you are giving pensions only to those who backed your party at the hustings and are denying pensions to those who held an alternative political opinion?