Pawan packs a punch: Calls Naidu Cain, says AP cursed because of him

​Hyderabad: Jana Sena chief Pawan Kalyan steered clear of taking any potshots at the Centre but tore into the TDP government in AP after a prolonged discussion on future course of action with his comrades-in- arms CPI and CPM here on Monday.

He was critical of the state government for rubbing shoulders with the BJP and now was raising Cain that the saffron party had ditched the state, by not granting special category status.

The CPI and CPM leaders too expressed displeasure over the way the BJP and the TDP are indulging in a slug-fest on corruption. Why shouldn't the BJP initiate action instead of tom-toming that the TDP government was steeped in corruption. They said they would organise protests from April.

The Jana Sena supremo, however, chose not to react to BJP chief Amit Shah's letter to Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu contending that the former had no locus standi in making allegations against the state government. "He is only president of a party. He is not part of the Central government. There is no point in reacting to his comments on Andhra Pradesh' development.

In the first place, what authority does he have to talk about development taking a back seat in Andhra?" he asked.

But the Jana Sena chief did not spare Naidu and hauling him over coals, he sought an explanation form him why he had whiled away time saying that the package was better than the special category status. "When I raised special category status issue in Tirupati, the Centre came out with the package.

A few days later when I spoke about the issue again at Kakinada, the state government said the offer of package was the best deal the state had ever struck. When I pointed out that the package had no statutory backing, then the state said it would be on the job. The TDP always spoke as though package was a better bet all the way through," Pawan Kalyan said.

Pawan Kalyan said the state had lost heavily because of conciliatory attitude of the state government. "The youth have no jobs, there are no proper education facilities in the state. The state says it has gone bankrupt and that it had no money but was ready to spend thousands of crores on Pushkarams," the actor-turned-politician said.

He actor also raised unexplained kidney diseases in Uddanam in Srikakulam district and said the state had not bothered about them even though the people affected by it were perishing like fleas, instead of going to their rescue, the state spends money on Pushkarams, he said.

Pawan Kalyan also tried to reach out to the people in North Andhra and Rayalaseema, questioning the state government as to why it had not earmarked any land for creating facilities for those who come from these two regions to Amaravati. Though the state had acquired 33,000 acres of land, the idea of offering at least one acre to each district for setting up some facilities for those who visit Amaravati, did not cross the government's mind, he said.

The Jana Sena chief said that those in the government should keep in mind that no one is above law and that as representative of people he would confront them on injustice being meted out to them. We are not afraid of you, he said. While this is so, the communist parties have announced agitations which they have decided during the meeting with Pawan Kalyan.

To begin with, they would organise protests in Anantapur which would be followed by Visakhapatnam and then Ongole. These programmes would be organised in April though the dates have not been yet finalised. Later agitation programmes would be extended to rest of the state, CPI state secretary K Ramakrishna said. CPM state secretary P Madhu also took part I the discussions.

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