Go to people, Chandrababu Naidu tells leaders

Amaravati: A day after two Central ministers P Ashok Gajapatiraju and Sujana Chowdary met Prime Minister Narendra Modi and put in their papers, Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu on Friday firmed up his next move asking his legislators to cover swathes of people and explain to them how the BJP had betrayed the state by refusing Special Category Status and not honouring fiscal and other commitments made in the AP State Reorganisation Act.

The Chief Minister constituted a strategy committee with ministers – Yanamala Ramakrishnudu, Kala Venkata Rao, Somireddy Chandramohan Reddy, Kaluva Srinivasulu, N Lokesh and K Atchen Naidu – where he discussed the future course of action in the wake of YS Jagan Mohan Reddy trying to take credit for TDP stepping out of the NDA government. Naidu apparently does not want Opposition leader to prove that he has an upper hand in the movement for justice for the state as he is raring for his next step, moving no confidence motion in Parliament on Monday.

The CM, in his interaction with his lawmakers, was categorical that on Saturday and Sunday, the MPs, Ministers and MLAs should visit their respective constituencies and explain to the people Centre’s great betrayal despite the TDP being loyal to the saffron party following coalition dharma to the last detail.

The party has also come up with pamphlets to be distributed which in a nutshell describe the promise made by the Centre and how it went back on them. The pamphlet will also give an account of how Naidu has lent his shoulder in putting the state back on rails after Telangana has been carved out in 2014.

Naidu, at the meeting of the strategy committee, also decided that the committee would take a call from time to time on issues depending on the developments at the Centre with the sole aim of exposing the BJP to let people to identify friends from foes.

The general instruction to all MPs is to embarrass the Centre at every opportunity and try to enlist the support of other parties in their fight for justice for the state. Naidu is understood to have told the MPs that since they were out of the government, they would have full freedom in attacking the government and they should make the best use of it. Naidu is also understood to have told them that they should stall the proceedings in both the houses of Parliament from Monday and outside.

There should not be any let up in washing the dirty linen in the public until the Centre gets off the high horse it has been riding and addresses the issues on which the TDP had differed with the BJP and parted ways with it.

Apparently to arrest the Opposition leader from capitalising on the TDP’s decision in coming out of the NDA government, Naidu made it clear that people were with the TDP and were, in fact, happy that the party had shown courage to step out of the government. He wanted the MPs and MLAs to realise that the TDP had not gained anything even electorally by being with the BJP.

“In the civic body elections, the TDP got the same number of votes as it had got in the 2014 general elections which were held a little later.
We struck alliance with the BJP because we thought it would benefit the state.

Now that the arrangement was not working the way we had imagined, we came out of it,” Chandrababu Naidu reported to have said, apparently trying to prove wrong YSRC’s campaign that it had lost the 2014 elections by a margin of 2 per cent of votes which the BJP had supplied to the TDP. Naidu wants to dent the confidence of the YSRC that its prospects had brightened as TDP is not with the BJP any more.

Chandrababu Naidu, apart from this, appeared to have dreamed up another move to get sympathy from daily wage labourers by showing that the principal villain in their lives is BJP as their wage arrears have been piling lately.

Naidu is understood to have asked official to pay up the daily wage labourers who get their wages from MNREGA, from the state exchequer after making it amply clear that the money they were getting was from the state and not form the Centre.

By R Prithvi Raj