Though distant, my only rival is Chandrababu Naidu, says Jagan Mohan Reddy

YSR Congress president Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy is supremely confident of a landslide victory in the upcoming Assembly elections. To this effect, he has already formulated grand plans for the new Andhra Pradesh state and its capital as its first Chief Minister.

Excerpts from an interview with A.T. Jayanti and Ch.V.M. Krishna Rao

It should be centrally situated in respect to the whole state. My concept of the Seemandhra capital is totally different from conventional views. I will build a new green capital city; and when I say green I do not mean only buildings that are environment friendly, but also a lot of greenery. There should be abundant land and water for that.

“The new capital city will have the best connectivity to all the districts apart from Hyderabad. If I have to ask someone staying in Hyderabad to come and settle in the new capital city, I need to showcase the infrastructure. I need to create euphoria about it. So my vision of the new capital is something new. Everything needs to be done with super speed yet with transparency. For that I am even thinking of setting up a panel of people from the High Court and CAG (Comptroller and Audit General) and have all the plans for development and expenditure cleared by it before the schemes are launched. The projects need to be cleared quickly as we are racing against time to create a new city in less than 10 years.”

“It is not an impossible task. We can create India’s best green capital city with all modern infrastructure and have an environmental and investment friendly climate… But I don’t want to reveal the location now.

“Welfare and development would have to go hand in hand. Every district will have a super-speciality hospital. I want to create a medical hub in the capital city where we plan to have faculty hospitals for each branch of medicine. The faculty hospitals in cardiac care will have top 10 to 20 heart specialists. Similarly for cancer, neurology, etc. the faculty doctors would visit the 13 districts’ multi-speciality hospitals one month a year by rote. This will ensure that excellent medical facilities will be available everywhere and you do not have to fly to any other city to be treated.”

“I want to ensure quality education right from day one of my government’s formation. Every government school will be English medium. I will bring the world’s best schools to set up their branches in Seemandhra. I will see that all eligible children are not only admitted in schools, but will also ensure that they are sent to schools by their parents. For this I want to offer a special allowance of '500 per kid per month to each family. But it will be effective for only two kids. This means that just for sending their kids to school, parents will get '1,000 assistance from the government.

“There is a huge dropout rate of children once they reach Class VII because the minute they are able, they are needed to earn an extra income. So not only will we be paying the parents for sending their children to school we will also impart free and quality education right from KG to PG.”

“We are going to try and get the likes of Stanford to come in. You have a tie-up with a university of that calibre and everything will automatically get upgraded. Currently our engineers aren’t able to find jobs because often the quality of education is poor and there has been no stress on learning English. Job interviews are conducted in English and they stumble at that frontier.”

“I will also build a 10-lane highway between Itchapuram and Tada. I have several plans to build special industrial and infrastructure zones to create more opportunities for providing jobs to the youth. The industrial corridor from Srikakulam to Tirupati will create huge job opportunities.”

“I have already prepared plans on how to go about it. There are many countries in the world like Japan, whose cities have become saturated and are looking to invest money in places where they are assured of growth. We will tap into all such resources and develop Seemandhra. The excitement of building a new city is that the possibility to showcase it as the best is immense.”

“It is not a problem. My dad has shown the way already. Without levying a single paisa of tax during his five and a half year rule, he ensured that the state budget grew from '40,000 crore to '1,06,000 crore. When you have a vision, when you have commitment, nothing is impossible.”

“In the process of cutting me to size, injustice has been done to the people of Andhra. When the state was split, a generous development fund should have been earmarked and specified. By not doing so, they have let the region down.”

“Welfare has to be a key ingredient. Unless you help your people achieve all that they aspire for there can be no real growth, and this cannot be time-bound. You have no idea about how little our people who live in the hinterlands have access to. With God’s grace I have everything I need and from now on my job will be to ensure that the people have access to the best of education, health and development.”

“I will support anybody at the Centre except the Congress. The Seemandhra state will need all the support it can get from the Centre in terms of funds, assistance and support. So there is no need for any confrontation with the Centre. I will support a government that is friendly towards Seeman-dhra’s development and its needs.”

“I have told both my sister and mother to be ready to contest. Sharmee told me that she needed some more time before she plunged into electoral politics. She wants to wait till her son Raja Reddy enters college. He is now in the 9th standard. When she expressed her inability to contest, that too on valid grounds, I said okay.

“There are no differences among my family members, we are all one and united. Sharmee is always of great help to me and she is the one who counters all the criticism before I react to any of it. People who gossip about how I am trying to limit her growth have no idea how close we really are and how I love her more than my own daughters.”

“She has a great role awaiting her. Once elections are over she will be in charge of Telangana. I was unable to do my Odarpu Yatra there and Sharmee will take it up.”

“The Odarpu Yatra for me was a huge revelation and during the classes I hold for my MLAs and MPs, I tell them that if you take up a yatra like this there is no way you will not understand your people or lose elections. The Odarpu Yatra will ensure that Sharmila wins the hearts of the Telangana people.”

“But surely my mother Vijayalakshmi will contest in these elections; I am keeping it a secret where she will contest from. You will come to know when it happens.”

“The Odarpu Yatra (to console the family members of those who had died of shock following YSR’s tragic death), and the tours I have undertaken, all account to more than 30,000 km. There was not only emotional bonding between the people and me, but I knew the pulse of the masses and they also knew what I was. This did not happen in Telangana region. I have planned my visits in Telangana too, but I was prevented on more than one occasion. When I was to enter the Telangana districts after finishing Guntur, I was arrested and imprisoned. Had there been my tours in that region, the story would have been different. “Undoubtedly my father was well loved by the people of all regions. Circumstances did not let me connect with the people, but now Sharmee will.”

“Chandrababu Naidu belongs to a different generation whereas I belong to another. What I have done at this age of 41, Chandrababu could not. In terms of thinking, perception and implementation, he is outdated. Chandrababu Naidu always talks about development…that is all. The state did not develop as much as he is saying. You name any sector, there was a marked difference between Naidu’s rule and YSR’s rule. YSR improved every sector. Even in IT we were placed 3rd during Vijay Bhaskar Reddy’s tenure, but during Chandrababu Naidu’s term we slipped to number 5.”

“People are talking of Naidu being the face of IT development, but what did he really do for the people at the grassroots? The basic thing people need at villages is their ID cards, be it for rations or other identity cards. I plan to set up an IT centre with scanners and retina recognition equipment in every village. It does not need a greatly skilled person to run this. People who need their cards will get it at their villages.”

“To monitor the health centres, schools and the IT kiosks, there will be a 10-member women’s unit of educated women who will police everything. They will also police the belt shops.”

“It will be a total sweep in favour of YSR congress. Of course Chandrababu Naidu will be the runners-up, but he will be a distant second. He may end up with 30 to 35 Assembly seats only.

“Like in Tamil Nadu, it is always a sweep in Seemandhra. People will give a massive mandate in favour of one party only. But the situation is always different in Telangana. Fractured mandate is common there. I expect TRS to get around 45 seats and be the single largest party there.”

“It all depends on how you put the question. If you ask a voter whether he would prefer Rahul Gandhi or Narendra Modi, he would certainly say Modi. But if you ask him about the party, the result would be different. I am 100 per cent confident that the YSR Congress party will get a landslide victory in the polls.”

“I have no bitterness against anyone. When I was in jail I used to pray every day seeking forgiveness if I had sinned and also for those who had sinned against me. Bitterness destroys you and I have too much to look forward to, to brood over someone or something. However distant, Naidu is my only rival, no one else.”

“The whole country knows that this CBI drama started after I left the Congress. Both TD and Congress came together to malign my image and to defame late Dr YSR’s legacy and to keep my family away from my people. God and my people are with me and we shall prevail.”

“It is a wrong perception. We had finalised most of our candidates many months ago and thus could not accommodate Congress leaders who first came to us and later joined the TD. Till today leaders are joining us from all parties unconditionally.”

“Our party is very careful about fielding candidates. Our main criteria are people’s preference and the credibility of the candidate. Unlike TD, money is not a criterion for us. This will become very clear once all the parties announce their list of candidates.”

“My time in jail was educative. I had a lot of time to learn about every aspect of the state and now I have only one desire, to be respected and loved. I want my picture to hang on the wall of every home.”

2 Hike the pension amount for all aged from '200 to '700

3 '3,000 crore will be

earmarked for

market intervention to ensure remunerative prices to all farmers for their products.

4 All existing DWCRA loans to the extent of '20,000 crore will be waived.

5 All social security cards, including ration cards, will be issued to people within 24 hours that too in their villages by establishing computer-aided offices with all facilities.

6 Fifty lakh new houses will be constructed within the next five years for weaker sections of the society.

7 Every district will have a super-speciality hospital. In addition, the new capital city will have 20 super-speciality hospitals under a university, which will coordinate with other hospitals in the state.

8 Seven-hour free power to agriculture will make Seemandhra state a ‘no power cut’ state by 2019.

9 Ten women constables from different castes from each village will be appointed to check the liquor menace. All belt shops will be closed from day one.

10 Employment will be guaranteed for all educated youth.

11 Boya, Vaddera and fishermen’s communities will be included in SCs.