Visakhapatnam: Apparently taking a leaf from the Aam Aadmi Party, whose broom-waving tactics caught the voters’ imagination, the Jai Samaikyandhra Party on Sunday picked the ‘chappal’ as its party symbol.
The party raised visions of activists flinging a slipper or two at opponents as the election campaigns turn increasingly bitter. The announcement came at an interaction that former chief minister Kiran Kumar Reddy and local party leaders had with student bodies that participated in the Samaikyandhra stir. Mr Reddy said that Jai Samaikhyandra is not a slogan, but a policy.
Explaining the rationale for the choice of symbol, Mr Kiran said that people wear the chappal for protection, and he assured them that the party would serve likewise.
“The chappal serves the people and likewise the JSP will provide protection to people. We will ask for it as the poll symbol too,” he said.
When a party worker demanded that the symbol should be used to counter state bifurcation, Ghazal Srinivas, who coordinated the session, said that Congress men should be taught a lesson.
While coordinating the meeting of Kiran Kumar Reddy, in Visakhapatnam, Srinivas narrated a story from Ramayana where Lord Rama refused to return to rule the kingdom and his brother Bharata carried his chappals and served the people. The Jai Samaikyandhra Party had opted for the footwear that symbolises great service, he said.
“Kukka kaatuku cheppu debba (clobber the dog that bites out),” he said, raising visions of slipper-waving activists who would not be above flinging one or two chappals at opponents.
In Hyderabad, JSP general secretary Dr N. Tulasi Reddy said slippers “are always available in pairs and not in singles. It means unity.
“We commonly find poor people but hardly find a person without slippers,” he said and added that the slippers give the wearers confidence and enhance their self-respect.
Speaking at the interaction, which was thinly attended, Mr Kiran Kumar Reddy was relatively soft on the Congress high command and concentrated on attacking the TD, BJP and the YSRC.
He alleged that the UPA government and the Congress had divided the State in a “shameful manner, disrespecting the sentiments of the Seemandhra people, which the BJP supported.”
He said he had launched the party for the sake of the people of Andhra Pradesh and not for his own sake.
“I have resigned for the sake of a unified State. State bifurcation will basically affect Telangana in terms of power supply. While the area has been consuming 115 million units of power, it is generating only 57 MU. Majority of power production is from Seemandhra. But Seemandhra would lose higher education, job opportunities and medical facilities,” he said, adding, “I oppose giving away well-developed Hyderabad to Telangana.”
He predicted that there will be water wars every year between the two States. He also said that this was the first time that Parliament had passed a Bill that the State Assembly had voted against.
He alleged that the Telugu Desam and YSRC totally supported the division of the State by giving acceptance letters to the Union government. He said that TD chief Mr N. Chandrababu Naidu had done this with an eye on returning to power.
“People think that the TD chief developed Hyderabad. In fact, he had only permitted HITEX and failed to gain a single seat in the city. Mr Naidu had borrowed Rs 40,000 crore from the RBI during his 1,800-day tenure. I availed only Rs 250 cr loan during my term,” he said.
He also said that YSRC chief Mr Jaganmohan Reddy had given the letter to the UPA government to divide the State with a view to becoming Chief Minister. He claimed that the State has been earning '46,000 crore revenue from taxes because of his strategies.
