Date:06/04/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/04/06/stories/2008040651250300.htm

Andhra Pradesh

It’s ‘dhanayagnam’, says Yerran

Special Correspondent

TDP leaders refute charges levelled by YSR

TDP demands white paper on irrigation projects
It says Government failed to check price rise

Photo: Basheer

On the offensive: MP K.Yerrannaidu addressing a press conference along with TDP leaders GSS Sivaji and G. Appala Suryanarayana and others in Srikakulam on Saturday.—

Srikakaulam: Senior TDP leaders, including party leader in the Lok Sabha Kinjarapu Yerrannaidu, district unit president and MLA Gouthu Shyamsundar Sivaji, former Minister G. Appalasuryanarayana and former ZP chief Y.V. Suryanarayna, on Saturday denied the charge of Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy that TDP leaders were throwing road blocks in the execution of irrigation projects.

Better deal

Speaking to mediapersons at the party office here, Mr. Naidu said what the TDP had been demanding was a better deal for the evacuees under various irrigation projects and an end to ‘rampant corruption’ at various stages of the projects.

The Congress had turned ‘jalayagnam’ into the ‘dhanayaganm, Mr.Naidu observed.

Mr. Naidu recalled the claim of the Chief Minister that Rs 1 lakh crore was being spent on providing irrigation facilities to one crore acres and demanded a white paper on the number of projects so far completed and the amount spent for the same.

Referring to the Rs.2 a kg rice scheme, Mr.Naidu recalled that it was the TDP Polit Bureau which had first announced the scheme and a panic stricken Congress Government had taken steps to implement it.

People were made to shell down thousands of crores for purchase of alcoholic drinks and only a part of this was being spent of the rice scheme, the TDP leaders said.

He had also charged the Government with failing to control prices of essential commodities.

The inflation had reached an all time high of seven percent, making the lives of ‘aam aadmi’, Mr.Naidu said.