The Hindu : Naidu launches all-out attack on Congress

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, May 30, 2003

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National

Naidu launches all-out attack on Congress

By A. Devarajan

TIRUPATI MAY 29. The Congress came in for a sharp attack at the Telugu Desam Party's three-day plenary session which concluded here today on a firm note with a call to its cadres to go all out to counter the "disruptive politics" of the Congress.

The plenum with the party supremo and Chief Minister, N. Chandrababu Naidu, in the chair had a two-and-a-half-hour discussion on its political resolution moved by the party's parliamentary party leader, K. Yerran Naidu, and seconded by its Rajya Sabha member, C. Ramachandraiah.

Mr. Chandrababu Naidu, in his hour-long speech on the resolution, presented a sort of "chargesheet" against the Congress and said the party had "not learnt any lessons" even after its repeated drubbings at the hustings both in the State and outside.

The TDP was started in 1983 by the thespian N.T. Rama Rao to save the "pride and self-respect of Telugus" which took a severe beating during the Congress regime between 1978-82.

Calling it a "dark era", he said a mere nine-month old TDP had uprooted the 100-year old Congress from the political map of Andhra Pradesh reflecting the "disgust of the Andhras" over the manner in which the "Congress lords" from Delhi remote-controlled the State and shuffled the Chief Ministers like a pack of cards.

The TDP was giving the National Democratic Alliance Government only outside and issue-based support without compromising on the Common Minimum Programme. Despite being a partner in the NDA coalition, the TDP put the Vajpayee Government on notice over the `Shiladan' row, a ceremony in the Ayodhya issue, and in condemning the Modi Government's "dubious role" in the Godhra carnage.

He took a dig at "pseudo-secular" parties such as the Congress which played the secular card hard only to safeguard its political interests.

What came in handy to him to grill the Congress was an allegation by the then Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister, Channa Reddy, that the CLP leader, Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy, was "responsible for the worst-ever communal clashes" in Hyderabad which claimed more than 400 lives.

The State Congress leaders, especially the CLP chief, Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy, had been trying to "derail" even developmental works and stop the flow of rice and funds from the Centre to the State by "spreading canards or by creating legal or administrative hurdles" though the Supreme Court had chastised the party once.

The Congress kept repeating the "free-power" slogan only in Andhra Pradesh when its Chief Ministers in 14 States under its control ruled it out as "impracticable".

Also, he drew attention to the rather "vicarious" role the PCC leaders were playing in not using their clout to stop the Congress Chief Minister of Karnataka, S.M. Krishna, from building dams "arbitrarily against the riparian interests of Andhra Pradesh".

Mr. Naidu said the Congress had to "import a foreigner" to head it showing the dearth of leaders and talent in the party. (Yerran Naidu and Ramachandraiah said the AICC was sending to Andhra Pradesh leaders who did not know even the boundaries of the State to study its problems.

In a formal attack on the Left parties, Mr. Naidu said that even communist countries changed their mindset in tune with the changing times, rather curiously the State party leaders of the CPI(M) and the CPI were still clinging on to the "obsolete and time-worm Left philosophies only to create hurdle for the TDP".

The resolution also condemned the separatist slogan being raised by the Telengana Rastra Samithi out of its own political frustration and expressed itself firmly against the smaller State concept as it would only "spell doom than do any good".

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