Chandrababu Has Betrayed the Farmers of AP: YS Jagan

Denduluru (West Godavari): Leader of Opposition in Andhra Pradesh assembly and YSR Congress Party President YS Jagan Mohan Reddy called upon the people to analyse their lives in the last four years of TDP rule in state. "Have we taken a step forward or backward," he asked the people to think. Speaking at an interactive meeting with farmers here today held as part of his mass contact programme Praja Sankalpa Yatra, YS Jagan criticised the Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu's claim that the state had made huge progress in the last four years and questioned if the farmers had benefited in any way.

The YSRCP Chief said how Chandrababu could claim growth of the state without development of farmers. He recalled TDP Chief's claim that he would waive off the farm loans during the last elections and pointed out that AP CM had even mentioned that it would the first file that Chandrababu would sign after taking over the office. "Having understood that he had not fulfilled the promises he made during the last elections, the TDP website has deleted the party manifesto."

YS Jagan said that in every meeting Chandrababu had promised to get back the gold that has been pledged in the banks to the people, but that did not happen. In fact people got auction notices for their gold from the banks, he said. He pointed out that the loan waiver that Chandrababu has offered was not enough to even clear the interests. "Earlier governments took the pain of paying the interest to the banks, while they disbursed interest-free loans to the farmers. Today, banks were not issuing interest-free loans to farmers and self-help groups," he said.

"Yet another promise that was made during the last elections by TDP was that they will establish Market Intervention Fund with Rs 5000 crores, but nothing seems to have happened in that direction," the YSRCP Chief said. He said that no crop had got minimum support price during Chandrababu's rule. The TDP Chief had established Heritage shops in different states and he was purchasing the goods from farmers for a lesser rate only to sell them for profit through Heritage, he alleged. "In the last four years Chandrababu has turned into a middleman."

The Leader of Opposition said that Polavaram was functioning in a very small scale because of former Chief Minister late Dr YS Rajashekara Reddy had completed some part of the work. He recalled that Dr YSR had completed 90 per cent work of right canal and 70 per cent of work on the left canal, whereas in the last four years Chandrababu had not completed it. Referring to Kaleshwaram project in Telangana, where works are moving at a fast pace, YS Jagan expressed his concern that Polavaram work was not moving ahead.

YS Jagan said that out of 36 lakh cubic meters of work to be done at Polavaram, only 6,000 cubic meters of work has been completed by the TDP government. The project work should have been left for the central government, but Chandrababu insisted that state government would build it because of the bribes and commissions that he would get. He alleged that though the price of raw material required for building the project was falling, the contractors were being paid huge amounts. "The reason is that state finance minister Yanamala's relative has been appointed as the contractor. The size of the houses for the people displaced due to Polavaram project was much smaller than the bathroom of Chandrababu's new house," he added.