Chandrababu Has Reduced AP To A State Of Scams 

Tummalapala Camp Office, Visakhapatnam District: If a leader is driven by integrity and commitment, good governance follows. Great welfare schemes fall into place. When my father visited Munagapaka in 2003, he saw for himself the suffering of jaggery farmers in this region. They were all victims of Chandrababu’s flawed policies.

To gain a first-hand understanding of their misery, he went to the house of a farmer, Adari Polayya and saw how the sweet jaggery paste was made. He gave a patient hearing to the local farmers and learnt about their problems and sought their suggestions for solutions. They replied that if power charges were reduced and their produce fetched them a reasonable price, their problems would be solved to a large extent.

As soon as my father came to power, he announced free power supply to the agriculture sector and ensured that jaggery farmers got a profitable price for their produce. Polayya’s family members showed me pictures of my father stirring the jaggery paste and shared fond memories of his visit to the place. They also gifted a slab of jaggery to me.

Be it pioneering welfare schemes such as fee reimbursement, free power supply to farmers, 108 and Arogyasri or Neeru Chettu, sand mining which are aimed purely at looting the resources of the state, they reflect the intention of the leadership in power.

Check: Praja Sankalpa Yatra Schedule Day 250

To put a dog to sleep, you declare it mad or rabid, it is said. Chandrababu Naidu seems to have adopted the same policy with respect to cooperative sugar factories, dairies and other government-owned organisations. He first ensures that they are driven into recoverable losses. Employees of V. V. Ramana Cooperative Sugar Factory told me precisely this today. This Sugar factory which had been functioning for over seven decades continuously, was first asked for closure by Chandrababu Naidu in 2002. He made sure that it passed into the hands of his close relative MVVS Murthy, employing backdoor means.

However, the farmers stood up against this conspiracy and resisted it by going to court and getting a stay order. They appealed to my father during the course of his Padayatra and submitted a petition to him to revive the factory. He ensured that it was brought back to life, as soon as he came to power. History appears to be repeating itself. Once again it is the same factory in question and Chandrababu in power. This time around, I stand in front of these suffering farmers, instead of my father.

“We have been reduced to bonded labourers and are not being paid our salaries,“ said sanitation workers of Munagapaka Panchayat. These employees of the gram panchayat have been suffering at the hands of the Chandrababu Naidu government without salaries for three years. Some of them have put in three decades of service. I was shocked to learn about these facts. Contrast their plight with the claims of the panchayat raj minister Nara Lokesh who brags about this sector making rapid strides!

I have a question for the chief minister—you have looted the taxpayers’ money to the extent of lakhs of crores of rupees. Added to this, you have business interests of thousands of crores. Why is it, that even then, you and your son the panchayat raj minister claim salaries without fail on the first of every month? Is it not inhuman to deny sanitation workers who struggle to earn their living for two square meals a day, their salaries for three months? To deny them their salaries is criminal and to give two months’ salaries as a loan to them, unbelievable as it may appear, once in six or eight months is even worse! How do you expect these people to survive on a day to day basis?