Southern States - Andhra Pradesh   

Mahanadu: Naidu hints at sops for ryots

By Our Special Correspondent

TIRUPATI MAY 27. The Telugu Desam Party president, N. Chandrababu Naidu, placed before his party delegates at the Mahanadu today a re-packaged clutch of welfare measures, and hinted at fresh sops for farmers tomorrow in what appeared to be an effort to respond to political challenges before next year's elections to the Assembly.

Mr. Naidu made no new concessions but spoke about the Government's plans to distribute 10 lakh house sites and 10 lakh gas connections, build 30 lakh sanitary latrines in villages and 5 lakhs in towns and uplift 20 lakh poor under the Velugu programme. As many of these schemes are already under implementation, the reference to these welfare measures were interpreted as a shift in the Government's emphasis to bestow individual benefits.

The TDP president outlined these plans while delivering the inaugural address at the three-day Mahanadu which began on a rather ordinary note on the outskirts of this famous pilgrim town. Monday's storm, which threw the arrangements out of gear, and the absence of film stars at this annual event left the delegates a wee bit disappointed.

Mr. Chandrababu Naidu's marathon two-hour speech was interspersed with frequent attacks on the Congress and once on the Telangana Rastra Samithi (TRS). Observing that `padayatras' had become a fancy for Congress leaders, he said the individual problems brought to their notice may be new to them, but he was quite aware of these issues since he had always been with the people. No other Chief Minister had undertaken as many tours as he had during the last two years.

He left none in doubt that his Government had no intentions of ordering a snap election which, he said, was being anticipated by Congressmen. The Assembly elections would be held as scheduled next year and the TDP would release its election manifesto at the next Mahanadu at Hyderabad in May 2004, Mr. Naidu declared assertively.

Responding to the campaign by the CLP leader, Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy, that the Congress would supply free power to farmers if elected to power, he reiterated that the Government would not increase power tariffs next year.

Critical of Karnataka

Mr. Naidu was highly critical of his Karnataka counterpart, S.M. Krishna, for what he called his indifferent and atrocious attitude towards the inter-state river water agreements.

In course of his marathon presidential address he devoted at least fifteen minutes to trace the entire genesis of AP's problem with Karnataka vis-a-vis its riparian rights by arbitrarily and unilaterally constructing dams across Upper Thunga and Chithravathi.

He charged the Karnataka CM of cruelly undermining AP's riparian rights in utter disregard for inter-state agreements and awards of the tribunal taking full advantage of the fact that the State was situated on the upper reaches of AP.

Mr. Naidu took the occasion to lambast the AP state congress leaders for their lackadaisical attitude towards the problem of their own state and doing precious little to bring press on the S.M.Krishna Government to stop his aggressive attitude towards the riparian rights of AP.

Mr. Naidu retained his stronghold on the party by emerging as the only candidate for the post of TDP president. Eighteen sets of nominations were received on his behalf today by Ummareddy Venkateswarlu, Convenor of the TDP's State Election Committee. Among those who proposed Mr. Naidu's candidature were the Home Minister, T. Devender Goud, the TD Parliamentary Party (TDPP) leader, K. Yerran Naidu, K. Prabhakar Reddy, MP, besides several Ministers and MLAs. The announcement of his re-election for a two-year term remains a formality tomorrow, NTR's 81st birth anniversary.

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