Naidu takes SCS struggle to villages

​New Delhi/Amaravati: Telugu Desam MPs who have been on agitation in Delhi for quite some time now, will be fanning out to their respective constituencies on Tuesday to wash BJP's dirty linen in the public for denying special category status (SCS) to Andhra Pradesh.

Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu, who has been closely guiding the MPs on how they should go about in building agitation at the nation’s capital, has decided that since Parliament has been adjourned sine die, the MPs should return to the state and promote awareness among the people about how the Centre had ditched the state.

According to sources, Naidu was satisfied with MPs' agitation thus far, particularly their attempt to take it to the doorsteps of the Prime Minister on Sunday and how they had resisted the Delhi police during the protest. Naidu was also happy with their protest at Rajghat on Monday and felt that the MPs, by continuing the heat on the Centre for the special category status, had in fact outwitted the YSRCP whose MPS are on indefinite hunger strike, a form of competitive agitation, for one-upmanship in the struggle for the SCS.

At Rajghat, former Union minister YS Chowdary, referring to the way the MPs were arrested on Sunday, said it was nothing but blatant undermining of democracy. Former Civil Aviation Minister P Ashok Gajapati Raju said the Centre had abdicated its responsibility of providing hand-holding to AP, which lost everything after the bifurcation. The Centre should lend its shoulder to AP in its effort to rebuild the state, he said.

As the Telugu Desam Party cadres would be shifting to villages from now on, Naidu is quick enough to realise that there was no point in just blaming the BJP for the ills of the state but he should come up with some freebies to the people so that they would be grateful to him at the time of elections.

Naidu, at the party strategy committee meeting held in Amaravati on Monday, cleared the proposals for organising major programmes on the occasion of Jyothi Rao Phule birth anniversary on April 11 and Amebdkar's birth anniversary on April 14.

The government is also planning to organise Dalita Tejam on April 20, where Naidu is expected to announce unemployment allowance to the youth, a promise he had made at the time of 2014 elections. Sources said that he may also announce the setting up of Anna canteens across the state.

The committee also decided that the heat on the BJP should remain without any let-up. The party will come up with some programmes to keep the embers of public dissatisfaction alive every day.

He has directed that there should be cycle yatras in the Assembly segments and an Atma Gourava Bus Yatra by MPs in all districts where they would explain how the BJP had left the state to its fate, breaking all promises it had made in the past.

The strategy committee is also understood to have decided to hold major public meetings at important places in the state where Chandrababu Naidu will speak to ensure that the people would connect to the agitation for SCS, which is becoming an emotive issue.