Know friends from foes, Chandrababu Naidu tells people

Nellore: Seeking people’s support to develop Andhra Pradesh into a state that everyone would envy, Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu on Friday called upon them to know their friends from foes.

Naidu, speaking at a public meeting organised at Naidupet in the district as mark of conclusion of weeklong Nava Nirmana Deeksha, said that he was ready to work untiringly for the welfare of the state and wanted people to repose faith in him.

At the same time, they should know that there were wolf which are moving in sheep’s clothing in their midst and it is necessary that they should be taught a fitting lesson at the time of hustings, he said, referring to the BJP and the YSRC.

Launching a scathing attack on the YSRC and the BJP for their “unholy alliance” for trying to bring ruin on the state, Naidu said that he was never afraid of anyone and that whether the Centre helped him or not, he would continue to toil till the state became a land of milk and honey. “In all my waking hours, I think about you and your children and how to make you all happy,” he said.

He dared the BJP at the Centre as to why it was cold to the needs of the state which was going through a tough time after bifurcation. “I want an answer from the Centre. I have been asking what is due to us. Don’t make a show that each time you throw a crumb at us, it is as though you are doing a great favour,” he said.

Punching holes in the claims of the BJP that it was dead against corruption, he wanted to know why they had depended on Gali Janardhan Reddy in Karnataka in the recently held assembly elections for trying to capture power and why they have chosen to support Jaganmohan Reddy in Andhra Pradesh. “It is a joke that these two parties should say that they would save the state from any difficulty in future,” he said.

Naidu said that if Jagan was kowtowing BJP, it was because he was mortally afraid of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. “After watching the fate of Sasikala in Tamil Naidu, a chill went up Jaganmohan Reddy’s spine that if he uttered one word against Modi, he would straight go to jail.

This is the reason why he is dancing attendance upon the Centre,” Naidu said, and pointed out: “The BJP for its part was using Jaganmohan Reddy to get even with AP since I had confronted it on why the state was not getting what was due to it.”

Naidu, while narrating the humiliation that he had faced each time he went to Delhi to seek help for AP, recalled how Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi who was on his way to Pretoria from Durban was forced out of a train at Pietermaritzburg station in South Africa by a European on June 7, 1893 on the ground that he had no eligibility to travel first class with him. “It was the beginning of Gandhi’s struggle for India’s freedom,” Naidu said. “I do not mind facing any humiliation for the sake of my state,” Naidu said.

The Chief Minister, referring to the resignation charade of the YSRC MPs at Delhi, said that both the YSRC and BJP were acting hand-in-glove. The YSRC MPs did not want to resign since they were afraid of losing the by-elections and the BJP too did not want to have their resignations accepted since it too is scared that it would bite the dust in the by-elections which it cannot afford ahead of general elections.

Dwelling on development initiatives in the state, he said: “We have planned holistic development of the state through Maha Sangamam intending to link rivers such as Nagavali, Vamsadhara, Godavari, Krishna and Penna for making the state drought-free.