IT minister defamed AP at int’l level: Lokesh

Visakhapatnam: Pregnant women need not get admitted to hospitals for delivery if they travel on the roads of Andhra Pradesh, said TDP national general secretary Nara Lokesh, in a sarcastic manner to highlight the horrible condition of roads in the state.

During the ‘Sankharavam’ campaign held in Visakhapatnam North, Gajuwaka, Anakapalli and Chodavaram constituencies here on Monday, Lokesh said that due to pending bills of the contractors for Rs 1.8 lakh crore, no one is coming forward to lay roads across the state and hence the people are struggling while commuting. He recalled that during his tenure as panchayat raj minister, about 25,000-km-long CC roads were laid in Andhra Pradesh.

Further, the TDP national general secretary made interesting comments in the Anakapalli meeting. He appealed to Anakapalli people to present an ‘egg award’ to IT and industries minister Gudivada Amarnath as a gift. He pointed out that the IT minister defamed the state at the international level.

Lokesh alleged that the IT minister took charge as minister at a young age and destroyed the industries and sent the existing industries away from state. Instead of getting new industries, Lokesh alleged that Amarnath occupied 600 acre government land, looted gravel and metal. “For the past four years, Chief Minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy played a game with people's lives, but people will teach him a befitting lesson to him in just two months,” he said. Terming Jagan Mohan Reddy as an ‘iron leg’, Lokesh stated that whenever Visakhapatnam was declared as executive capital, the boilers explode and there was a gas leakage at the LG Polymers, followed by other industrial disasters. Also, whenever the Chief Minister speaks at public meetings, he is only chanting the name of TDP chief N Chandrababu Naidu, Lokesh pointed out.

“No advertisement was given here for sale of Visakhapatnam Steel Plant land in Andhra Pradesh and advertisement was given in Hyderabad papers. Those who buy such lands, we will take back from them when we come to power,” he warned.

He assured the VSP employees and residents of Visakhapatnam that he would ensure that privatisation of the VSP will be stopped.