Naidu slams Jagan for dropping only backward class sitting MLAs

Amaravat: Telugu Desam Party (TDP) supremo N. Chandrababu Naidu on Thursday criticised Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y. S. Jagan Mohan Reddy for dropping or shifting sitting MLAs belonging to only backward classes.

The former Chief Minister asked why only BC MLAs of the YSR Congress Party (YSRCP) are being dropped or shifted while those from Reddy community are being allowed to contest again.

Naidu was reacting to Jagan dropping as many as 13 sitting MLAs in the two lists of candidates announced for coming Assembly elections. The ruling party has so far declared 35 candidates.

Addressing a meeting of BCs got up at the party headquarters here on the occasion of launching of the 'Jayaho BCs' programme, Naidu claimed that after the YSRCP came to power, BCs across the state were subjected to torture and at least 300 persons belonging to the community, including 74 persons from the TDP, were killed.

He stated that Nanda Subbaiah, who fought against the corrupt practices and atrocities of the Proddatur MLA, Sivaprasada Reddy, was brutally murdered and asked why this MLA was not dropped.

Had this MLA belonged to a different community he too would have been shifted from there, the TDP supremo felt.

He assured that after coming to power, his TDP will certainly enact a law for the safety and security of BCs. He said that 54 committees formed till now will study the financial conditions of various BC communities.

"Work for 100 days for the party, for the state and for the BCs. The TDP will take the responsibility to promote all of you both politically and economically," he told the party leaders.

Naidu launched the campaign vehicles for the 'Jayaho BCs' programme which will help the party leaders to reach the public to explain how the TDP came to the rescue of BCs and how Jagan has taken them for a ride.

He claimed that the TDP is a factory and a university that manufactures leadership among the BCs which promoted the leaders from the community as MPs and MLAs for a long time.

The TDP chief said that he personally takes the responsibility of elevating the BCs to the extent that in every 100 leaders, at least 10 should be from the community.

Alleging that Jagan has pushed the state into deep debt, he said the Chief Minister raised Rs 13 lakh crore debts till now which is far more than the Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP).

"Ultimately we have to repay these debts. Since BCs comprise 50 per cent of the population in the state, you have to bear Rs 6.5 lakh crore debt burden of the total of Rs 13 lakh crores," Naidu noted.