Modi strikes a chord with AP

• Addresses six meetings on Thursday
• Wishes in Telugu; he also addresses local issues
• Pawan, Naidu share dais with him
• Naidu stresses historic need of electing TDP
• Pawan says: ‘YSRCP Hatao – Seemandhra ko Bachao’

Hyderabad: In what is being seen as a do-or-die battle in Seemandhra, the BJP-TDP combine is leaving nothing to chance to come to power, and notwithstanding scorching heat, BJP Prime Ministerial Candidate Narendra Modi, TDP president N Chandrababu Naidu and Jana Sena leader Pawan Kalyan not only took up a whirlwind tour of the State and addressed six meetings on Thursday, but they also made all-out efforts to avoid monotony which is a challenging task for any politician.

Modi who picked up a few Telugu words to welcome the gatherings succeeded in striking a chord with the locals. He made promises specific to the towns he visited. He also recalled the past glory of the places in his speeches. At Madanapalle in Chittoor district, which was his first stop, he said Rabindranath Tagore translated the National Anthem from Bengali to English and composed music for it there. At the same time, he remembered how the founder president of TDP, N T Rama Rao, also chose the district to launch all his pet schemes and used to seek the blessings of Lord Venkateswara.

In Nellore, Modi said the party leader from Nellore, M Venkaiah Naidu, was responsible for insisting on special status for the residual state when Congress government bifurcated the State. In Guntur, he recalled the role of the farmers and the women who actively participated in Satyagraha movement of Mahatma Gandhi. Not just that, he even harped on the slogan of Telugu pride and recounted how the Congress party insulted former Prime Minister P V Narasimha Rao who was responsible for economic reforms and development in the country and how Rajiv Gandhi insulted the then Chief Minister T Anjaiah at Begumpet airport.

Modi said Narasimha Rao was meted out the treatment which Bahadur Shah Zafar, the last Mughal emperor, got. "When Bahadur Shah died, British government in Delhi refused to give two-yards of land for his funeral. When Rao died, the mother-son government (Sonia and Rahul Gandhi) refused to give two-yards of land for him in Delhi."

In Guntur, he referred to the ban on cotton exports and promised that BJP government would provide necessary infrastructure that is required for export of cotton, turmeric and chilly for which the region is famous. At Bhimavaram, Modi raised the issue of Polavaram project and said that it would be completed at the earliest once NDA came to power at the Centre. To woo the fishermen community who constituted majority of voters in the coastal district, he said that he would introduce new schemes for their uplift by providing training in ornamental fish and seed weed farming which had emerged as a commercially profitable business in aquaculture. Modi also promised that skill development training would be provided to 70 crore youth in the country and address the unemployment problem.

In Visakhapatnam, Modi promised to make it the commercial capital of Andhra Pradesh. To woo the voters of the ‘Steel City,’ Modi said that he would upgrade Visakhapatnam as an international trade centre Pawan Kalyan who also spoke at all the meetings drew huge response from the crowds. Pawan went hammer and tongs against YSRCP president Y S Jaganmohan Reddy and took jibes at him. In Visakhapatnam, Pawan said that at a time when a grown-up son should give rest to his mother, Jagan was making her slog in hot summer just to fulfill his wish to become the Chief Minister. He gave a slogan – “YSRCP hatao, Seemandhra ko bachao.” Chandrababu Naidu for his part stressed the historical necessity of electing the TDP to power in Seemandhra.