TDP Imposes Barbaric Restrictions Denying Basic Freedom 

Dandugopalapuram, Srikakulam district: My padayatra today passed through Kotabommali and Santhabommali mandals. The entire day, I listened to complaints against the local minister and his followers who are perpetrating untold atrocities on the locals. The owner of the rice mill where I stayed last night came and met me along with his family members. Because they provided me with shelter for the night, TDP leaders went to their house and threatened him, he told me. They also threatened to disrupt the activities of the mill and harm his business, he said. However, he stood up to their threats and since his affection outweighed fear, he did not bow before them.

Villagers from Nimmada, the minister’s village, met me today. Denying access to Erakayya, a poor villager’s field, they had a cellphone tower installed and were enjoying its rent. 20 families in the village refused to toe the line of the minister and as a result they are facing social boycott. Others are not supposed to interact with them, as per the ruling party leaders diktats.

Their land is not supposed to be cultivated they can neither sell their land nor can others buy it. They cannot set up any business activity and washer men or barbers cannot visit them, as per the restrictions placed. I was shocked to learn of the scale of atrocities these innocent villagers were being subjected to, and the level to which the TDP government and its party leaders could stoop. To deny basic freedom to your fellow citizens is nothing short of Stone Age savagery.

Maddupu Kavita, a village woman told me that they were being threatened with stoppage of pension if they join the Padayatra. Another woman, Lakshmi, set free pigeons into the air as a symbol of hope for liberation from the tyrannical TDP regime.

People in the minister’s mandal have been suffering from a slew of problems which have been plaguing them, including scarcity of drinking water. There is no mention of the scheme, NTR Sujala Sravanti, they said. They complained that they did not have basic facilities including roads. Farmers said they were suffering because Kondapeta, Podugupadu, Kothapeta and other minor lift irrigation schemes started during my father’s tenure, not been completed. As a result, they did not have water for cultivating their crops. Instead of focusing on trying to alleviate their suffering and resolving their problems, the TDP leaders are threatening them to win them over to their side. How foolish can they be!

My father’s Padayatra also proceeded along the same route that I walked today. Villagers of Naupada recalled that as soon as he became chief minister, he had removed the ‘Nala’ tax to help salt farmers whose plight he had seen with his own eyes while he was on his walkathon here. They recalled that he was so large-hearted that he came forward to give compensation to salt farmers hit by cyclone. While the masses were vexed with the anti-people regime back then when my father undertook his Padayatra, today the common man is reeling under the tyranny of the rulers in all spheres of life.

In the evening I visited the protest site of fishermen who had been staging protests and hunger strikes for 3051 days against the setting up of a thermal power plant near Vadditandra. They had been fighting for the scrapping of GO number 1108 which give away lands on which they survived and which they had been enjoying for generations. They were furious with Chandrababu Naidu for betraying them after promising at the time of elections, to scrap this GO. They were equally indignant with the minister whose cronies set up prawn farms on these very lands.

I have a question for the chief minister—while you are aware that people here do not have access to proper drinking water and are suffering from a host of diseases including kidney elements, you have not done anything with respect to NTR Sujala Sravanthi scheme. What happened to your promise of safe drinking water to every village and free tap connections to every street? Do you recall your promise of 20 Liters of mineral water for Rs. 2.00?

Is your election manifesto only a massive exercise in deception?

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