CM's scathing attack on Cong. leaders

By Our Special Correspondent

HYDERABAD, JUNE 25. The TDP president, Mr. N. Chandrababu Naidu, has strongly criticised State Congress leaders for complaining about inadequate irrigation facilities while acquiescing through their silence with Karnataka which has threatened to approach the Supreme Court to stall five projects across the Krishna.

He said that if these leaders really had the interests of the State at heart, they must prevail upon Karnataka to drop its threat or take up the issue with the Congress high command.

In a scathing attack, he said Congressmen had the habit of speaking in different voices in different regions, when in power and out of it and before and after elections.They had promised free power supply to farmers before the Assembly polls in 1999 but supported a move at the Centre to levy a minimum tariff, fixed by regulatory commissions, on the farm sector. Mr. Chandrababu Naidu was addressing partymen at the NTR Memorial Trust on Monday after administering a pledge to TDP candidates for the Zilla Parishad Territorial Constituencies (ZPTCs) whose names were earlier approved by the leadership. The first list contained 54 candidates from nine districts.

In an indirect reference to the demand for separate Telangana, he said development of backward areas and removal of poverty were possible only in an integrated State. ``The Centre will listen to us and give money only if we are a big State,'' he observed.

The presence of 36 TDP and BJP MPs enabled the State to pressure the Centre to purchase 70 lakh tonnes of rice during the rabi season. If their number was less, AP would have received the same treatment like the neglected States in the North-East. The separatist demand, he said, was an outcome of the greed for power of some political parties and individuals.

Exuding confidence about his party's prospects in the polls to ZPTCs and MPTCs on July 12 and 15, Mr. Naidu said the TDP had a strong organisational network having completed elections from booth to the State level, a dedicated cadre and the unstinted support of women. ``None can halt our march to victory,'' he asserted. Setting the post-poll agenda, he said Mandal and Zilla Parishad representatives must build up on the efforts of the TDP Government to strengthen panchayat raj institutions by giving them more powers, holding elections in time and providing reservations for women.

Mr. Naidu said technology would play an important role in the development of the rural areas very soon because information as well as services like the facility to pay taxes would be available through internet in villages. Elected representatives must educate people about the importance of information technology.

Explaining the goals of the TDP Government, he said 40 lakh below-poverty-line families would be assisted in the next five years with an outlay of Rs. 3,000 crores. The State would become power surplus by next year, blacktopped roads laid for all villages with a population of 1,000, protected water supply made available in all villages in five years and 100 per cent literacy achieved by 2005.

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Section  : Southern States
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