Visakhapatnam: CM Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy misleading public on coronavirus said Ch Ayyanna Patrudu

Visakhapatnam: TDP senior leader Ch Ayyanna Patrudu on Monday came down heavily on the Chief Minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy for locking horns with State Election Commission over the postponement of local body elections for six weeks in the state in the wake of coronavirus threat.

Addressing a press conference here on Monday, the former minister said the Chief Minister had murdered democracy in the state as the YSRCP candidates resorting to all violations in filing of nominations by threatening opposition candidates.

Stating that everybody would be under the purview of Election Commission during the polls, he added that the CM did not have minimum knowledge about this. "Police have been roped in to threaten the candidates directly at the behest of the ruling party," Patrudu pointed out and advised the police to discard their uniforms, wear the YSRC uniform and contest in the polls.

The TDP leader said it's unfortunate that the Chief Minister, who had given political positions to 43 persons of his caste, was now speaking about caste that played a 'key' role in the postponement of the local body elections. "The government could never conduct polls peacefully with the same policemen standing guard as the policing system has failed miserably in the past nine months," he mentioned.

Further, Ayyanna Patrudu said the TDP was requesting the Centre to send central forces for the smooth conduct of local body elections. He flayed the CM of speaking out of ignorance on coronavirus and 'misleading' public. "Though Health Secretary was seated next to him, Jagan was advocating Paracetamol as the 'only' medication to control the spread of COVID-19 without consulting the former. His advocacy to spray bleaching powder on the belongings of the suspects is even more ridiculous. Don't the health officials in China, Italy, US, know this or are they spending crores of rupees unnecessarily to control the virus?" he remarked.

Former minister Bandaru Satyanarayana Murthy said the local body elections in Maharashtra had also been stalled and 144 Section of CrPC had been imposed in Pune as part of coronavirus preventive measure.

He wondered how Assembly Speaker Tammineni Sitaram could address people in singular and speak disrespectfully of them, thus bringing disrepute to the constitutional position. The State government, Bandaru pointed out, had not taken a single step to tackle coronavirus. "Even half the steps initiated by the neighbouring state Telangana has not been done in Andhra Pradesh," he pointed out.