Telugu Desam Party national president N. Chandrababu Naidu has demanded that Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy resign to his post owning moral responsibility for the chaos in the distribution of pensions and the death of a few beneficiaries in Andhra Pradesh.
Addressing the media at Nallajerla in East Godavari district on April 5 (Friday), Mr. Naidu lambasted the YSRCP government for not adhering to the Election Commission of India (ECI) directive on the disbursal of pensions.
“The ECI has only barred the volunteers from disbursing the cash benefits to the existing beneficiaries of ongoing welfare schemes. The regular government employees of the village/ward secretariats can be used for the purpose. There is no bar on them. But the government chose to ask the beneficiaries to come to the secretariats to collect the pension amounts, which led to the death of a few of them due to heat. The government is responsible for these deaths,” Mr. Naidu alleged.
“It is in the DNA of Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy to gain sympathy and political mileage over deaths. He gained sympathy over the death of his father. Ahead of the 2019 general elections, he used the murder of his paternal uncle and former MP Y.S. Vivekananda Reddy to come back to power. Now, he is trying to use the death of beneficiaries of social welfare pensions for his political gain,” Mr. Naidu alleged.
Mr. Naidu further alleged that the State government, instead of releasing the pension amount, had cleared bills of contractors worth ₹13,000 crore before the financial year drew to a close on March 31.
Reiterating that he was not against the volunteer system, Mr. Naidu said, “Mr. Jagan Mohan Reddy is encouraging the volunteers to actively participate in the election campaign and is promising to do justice to them on coming back to power. The volunteers need to be wary as they are being made scapegoats. Nobody can save them if they are booked for violating the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) norms and their careers will be in jeopardy.”
