Leaders With Sincerity Dwell In People’s Hearts Forever

Kothapenta, Visakhapatnam District: If there is one quality I have inherited from my late father, Dr YS Rajasekhara Reddy, it is to fight relentlessly for the cause one believes in and for the people one serves. His life serves as a source of tremendous inspiration to me. The only lesson he taught to me in politics was to serve the suffering masses.

I paid my homage to the memory of my father who taught me to tread the path of public service and who made me what I am today. And then I began my Padayatra for the day.

All along the way, in all villages, people everywhere were recalling the contribution of my late father and paying rich tributes to him. Every single individual remembered how she or he had benefited in some way from his governance and through his many people-oriented schemes.

My Padayatra route today carried special significance because I walked in the same path that my father did, on his walkathon fifteen years ago. My sister, Sharmila, also walked along the same route. Lakkavaram is especially dear to us because my father stayed here. The villagers here recollected my father’s lasting contribution and his commitment to serve the common people. “It was as if we had been interacting with the head of our family. The news of his tragic demise left us bereaved and all of us wept as if we had lost one of our own. Irrespective of party affiliations, not a single home in this village cooked a meal and ate that day," recounted a heartbroken soul. They had tears as they spoke these words. They had installed statue in his memory at the place where he stayed. Government help should not be based on party loyalties, but eligibility. These were the words of my father who believed that eligibility for any welfare scheme should be the sole criterion. This is the reason why countless millions had unbounded love and respect for him.

Many people today narrated to me the contrast in welfare governance between my father's era and the current TDP dispensation. Demudu and Satya Rao brought their visually impaired grandson, Durga Prasad to meet me. They told me that during my father’s time they were granted a loan waiver of four lakh rupees. One of them found a job as a VRO and their grandson, who was visually impaired used to get a pension. However, once the TDP came to power, his pension was stopped abruptly and without any reason. The grandfather-grandson duo went to court and waged a legal battle for three and a half years at the end of which they secured justice. What about the pension which was not given for three and a half years? Don’t the rulers deserve to be punished for this?

Nagamani of Jagannathapuram is an exceptionally good student and comes from a very impoverished background. Her father, their bread-winner, suffered a leg injury in an accident while working in the field. She was afraid that she may have to discontinue her studies because they did not have the resources to pay her tuition fees. My father’s fee reimbursement scheme came to her rescue in that hour of need. Today, after completing her engineering, she works with Brandex company which was set up thanks to my father’s initiative. She has turned into the breadwinner of their family. During my father's tenure, her father could get a pension and their family, a house under the Indiramma housing scheme. They were also given a loan waiver. However, after the TDP government came to power, her father's pension was stopped. Why this discrimination? The TDP might be able to withdraw someone’s pension, but can it wipe the lasting memory of a great man from the hearts of the people?

I have a question for the chief minister—my father always used to say that it is not one’s lifespan which is of consequence, but the quality of one’s life, how one spends one’s time serving others. “It is not the number of years in power which count, but the number of hearts in which one dwells, which is important," my father would say. Except for gaining power through backdoor means, stabbing others in the back, conspiring and plotting to gain power, have you ever tried to serve the common, suffering people with sincerity in your 40 years of political life?

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