Bharatiya Janata Party State unit president Somu Veerraju has insisted that the YSR Congress Party (YSRCP) and Telugu Desam Party (TDP) are like twins in committing a fraud, and said forging an alliance with them amounts to doing injustice to the people of the State.
He maintained that the BJP’s relationship with Jana Sena Party (JSP) is good and the discord between them is only a creation of the media.
As far as the BJP’s strategy for 2024 elections is concerned, he made it clear that Hindutva is going to be on its main agenda along with issues related to development and welfare.
In an exclusive interaction with The Hindu, Mr. Veerraju said the BJP and JSP might have differences of opinion, like they had about fielding a candidate in the byelection for Badvel Assembly constituency, but it should not be construed as parting ways.
He alleged that the YSRCP and the TDP had no vision for the development of the State. The former Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu failed in developing Amaravati and had purposefully spurned the special financial assistance offered by the Central government while harping on the demand for Special Category Status (SCS), which was raked up from time to time just for the sake of ‘political sloganeering’, he said.
On the other hand, Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy completely neglected development due to his obsession with welfare., he said
Mr. Veerraju questioned why Mr. Jagan was seeking approval of ₹55,000 crore revised cost estimate for the Polavaram project, having alleged that the cost escalation was a handiwork of Mr. Naidu. He was suggesting that there were many such issues to be looked at critically.
‘Page pramukhs’
Mr. Veerraju said that as part of organisation building, the BJP would have a “Page Pramukh” (an activist for each page of the voter list) for every 100 voters in the State by the end of 2022 to highlight what the Modi government had done for Andhra Pradesh since bifurcation.
In fact, the volunteer system, which was being misused by the YSRCP government, was a copy of the BJP’s Page Pramukh structure. The basic difference was Page Pramukhs work with party funding whereas the Andhra Pradesh government’s money was being spent on volunteers whose job, he alleged, was to blackmail people to vote for YSRCP if they wished to avail themselves of various benefits.
Whether people voted for BJP or not, the Central government did a lot for the AP, he claimed.
“The Modi government gave huge sums to Andhra Pradesh and extended support in other forms, but people are kept in the dark about it. A conscious effort is under way to make BJP unpopular. But things will not remain the same. We have a grand vision for the country including Andhra Pradesh, you will see the result”, Mr. Veerraju exuded confidence.
BJP national president J.P. Nadda is glued to the task of catapulting it to power in Andhra Pradesh two years down the line, Mr. Veerraju added.
