Don’t seek mandate, if you fail on promises

Visakhapatnam: Holding both the state and Central governments responsible for the maladies afflicting society, Jana Sena chief Pawan Kalyan on Wednesday questioned the ruling class on why it has forsaken its political responsibility of keeping the promises made to the people and what justification they had now in seeking a fresh mandate from them in the next election.

The actor-turned-politician was speaking at a meeting of party workers here after landing in Visakhapatnam this morning. He first drove to the Dredging Corporation of India office where the employees are on agitation protecting the suicide of their colleague following the move of the Centre to privatise the PSU. Though Pawan Kalyan christened his latest phase of the tour of the state as “Chalore Chalore Chal,” the bonhomie this time was missing since he was in the port city to comfort the kin of the DCI staffer and question the Centre why it was privatising the PSU much to the detriment of society.

Later in the day, interacting with the party workers, Pawan Kalyan explained why he had supported TDP president and Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu in the last election, ignoring the advice to him that Naidu was in the habit of dumping people after ‘using them’.

Pawan Kalyan said he had lent support to Naidu in the last election as he (Pawan) considered him as a leader with enormous experience in administration. “A leader needs experience, or he cannot run the show. If making a movie calls for brains, running the administration of a state requires commitment and strength,” he said. He sought to explain how he came to respond to the problems people faced: “Since beginning, I had a heart that ached for the people in distress.”

“If there is injustice, I wanted to set it right. As long as my heart is Indian, I would feel comfortable even in dresses made in other countries. In the beginning such dress used to be uncomfortable but once my heart began throbbing for the people, the dress stopped bothering me,” he said.

He said he came into politics not for any selfish reason but only to answer the questions that kept bothering him in society. He said he did not care if the government got angry with him for being on the side of the people. “What would happen to me. Will they beat me up? Let them do it. I will prove to them what a wounded person could do,” he said.

Earlier in the day, speaking at a public meeting after comforting the kin of Dredging Corporation of India employee N Venkatesh who committed suicide fearing privatisation of his PSU, he said the Narendra Modi government should take the responsibility for the death of the employee.

Stating that the privatisation of the DCI is unwarranted, Pawan dashed off his first letter to the leader of the nation, asking him to review the decision in the interests of the country and people. Not leaving the Chief Minister and Visakhapatnam BJP MP K Haribabu for remaining silent on the issue, the Jana Sena chief said he does not belong to their genre of leaders who run away from addressing the issues. He wanted Naidu to step his foot firmly against the privatisation of the DCI.

Pawan also confronted YS Jaganmohan Reddy and asked him to take up the issue of the privatisation of the DCI. He should lend his shoulder to the efforts against privatisation, he said.