Andhra Pradesh Congress Committee (APCC) president Y. S. Sharmila criticised the TDP national president N. Chandrababu Naidu and Jana Sena Party president Pawan Kalyan for forging an alliance with the BJP.
Addressing the media on March 10 (Sunday), Ms. Sharmila called Mr. Naidu “a chameleon who changed colour to further his political moves”.
She said the TDP and the JSP had conveniently moved the key issues of the State such as the Special Category Status (SCS) and Polavaram project on the back burner to sail along with the BJP, which had deceived people of the State.
Mr. Naidu, she maintained, owes an explanation to the people of the State on the alliance with the BJP, a party he had spoken against very strongly for denying the State its rightful share of developmental projects in the past.
Referring to Mr. Pawan Kalyan’s statement that he had high respect for Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Ms. Sharmila wondered about the reason for such respect and said, “he needs to explain this to the people”.
The APCC president alleged that while the TDP-JSP had officially declared that their parties would work together with the BJP in the forthcoming elections, Chief Minister Y. S. Jagan Mohan Reddy’s YSR Congress Party had a ‘secret understanding’ with the ruling party at the Centre. “Why do you think no action has been taken against the State by the Centre which has acknowledged that illegal sand mining is taking place in Andhra Pradesh?” she asked.
She said the Jagan Mohan Reddy’s government in the State was no different than Narendra Modi’s BJP at the Centre. The BJP had promised to provide 2 crore jobs every year to the youth, but it had reneged on the promise, she recalled, adding that the YSRCP had also “deceived the youth in the State in the name of “Mega DSC”.
Pointing to the fact that the Chief Minister was aware of the 2.3 lakh vacant posts in different government departments when he came to power, Ms. Sharmila asked why did the YSRCP government fail to release a notification to fill the posts earlier, instead of issuing it two months ahead of the elections. “This only demonstrates how sincere the government is about solving the unemployment problem in the State,” she said.
Referring to what she called ‘use of brute police force to foil the Congress protest demanding the ‘Mega DSC’, Ms. Sharmila said while at the Centre, the BJP resorted to misuse of Central agencies such as Enforcement Directorate (ED) and the CBI, Mr. Jagan Mohan Reddy used police forces to gag the Opposition’s voice. She also accused the ruling party in the State of misusing huge public funds for the party campaign “Siddham”.
Ms. Sharmila said in response to the ‘acute unemployment problem’ in the country, the Congress leadership led by Mallikarjun Kharge and Rahul Gandhi had released the party manifesto which had schemes like ‘Bharti Bharosa’ and ‘Yuva Roshni’ to address the growing unemployment problem across the country.
