Dial your CM: TDP offers to provide phone numbers

By Our Special Correspondent

HYDERABAD, OCT. 30. The Government and the Telugu Desam Party have offered to make available telephone numbers and addresses of all the people who participated in the `Dial Your CM' programme on Monday.

This should put paid to motivated criticism that the show was `stage-managed and a fraud', they said in response to the hard- hitting comments by Dr. Y. S. Rajasekhara Reddy, Leader of the Opposition.

`Nonsense. You can't say it is a fraud and stage-managed just because you do not get connection', Mr. Lal Jan Basha, TDP general secretary, Mr. J. R. Pushparaj, deputy leader in the Assembly, and Mr. R. Chandrasekhara Reddy, spokesman, said at a press conference here on Tuesday.

In a separate media interaction, the Minister for Information and Public Relations, Dr. N. Siva Prasad, said the programme, in which the Chief Minister answered queries from the general public every week, was very successful which helped redress many grievances. It had been running without a break for 147 weeks.

The Minister said Dr. Rajasekhara Reddy ought to know that close to 20,000 calls were made from all over the State during the programme, but barely 10 could finally make it. There was nothing hanky panky in the calls.

Some journalists were also present in the room where the Chief Minister answered the calls. The Leader of the Opposition was welcome to check it out himself. Government was ready to give phone numbers and addresses of the callers yesterday.

Both press conferences ran on identical lines. They said Dr. Rajasekhara Reddy played a `pre-planned drama' considering that reporters were invited and critical press release issued even before the programme started.

The TDP leaders said in his anxiety to discredit the Chief Minister, the Congress leader ended up `insulting' the common people who talked to Mr. Naidu. The charge that someone in the Chief Minister's office made a call was `baseless'.

They said Dr. Reddy was yet unable to digest the popular verdict of 1999 when his `dreams of ascending the CM's seat were dashed to the ground'. He was trying to malign Mr. Chandrababu Naidu at every opportunity. The Chief Minister did not need to `stage- manage' the phone-in programme to boost his image because `he is already known as the man of masses who is with them in their hour of need'. Dr. Rajasekhara Reddy's vicious outbursts were motivated by `sheer jealousy' over Mr. Naidu's `abiding rapport with the people'.

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : Southern States
Previous : More optic fibre cable lines for State
Next     : `Immense scope for cooperation between India and
           Canada'