HYDERABAD : Treasury Benches gave a spirited reply to the salvos fired by Leader of Opposition N. Chandrababu Naidu against the Ministers. The Telugu Desam Party president had accused them of not touring the flood-affected areas.

Mines Minister P. Sabita Indra Reddy, who is in-charge of East Godavari, said she reached Mummidivaram two days ahead of Mr. Naidu and went with rice for the victims unlike the TDP leader who visited the village with party supporters to gain political mileage.

Breaches

Ms. Reddy said she camped in the district for a full week from August 6 to oversee relief operations. She disputed Mr. Naidu's claim that he supervised the operation to close breaches to the bund of Godavari with sandbags at Kothapet. In fact, she was involved in the arrangement.

Major Irrigation Minister Ponnala Laxmaiah challenged Mr. Naidu's claim that the breaches to Godavari were caused by heavy discharges from Sriramsagar Project and failure of the crest gates of downstream Dowleswaram barrage to reopen. He said the outflow from SRSP was only 48,000 cusecs which took 60 hours to reach the barrage. But the damage had been done by then.

`Victory rally'

Vatti Vasantha Kumar (Congress), accusing Mr. Naidu of politicising relief operations, said the latter's visit to the affected areas on tractors appeared like a "victory rally". Local Telugu Desam leaders followed him with smiles on faces, as if on a picnic tour. Mr. Kumar took a dig at the TD president for "fishing in troubled waters", recalling an observation made by NTR that his son-in-law had far exceeded him in acting.

Mr. Kumar said Mr. Naidu, aided by some newspapers and TV channels, sought to project bags of damaged rice as ones distributed by the Government.

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