Seemandhra's killer instinct will help Andhra Pradesh: Chandrababu Naidu
HYDERABAD: Telugu Desam president N. Chandrababu Naidu on Sunday exuded confidence that the killer instinct among the people of Seemandhra, which stemmed from the feeling of being let down in the wake of the state’s division, would play a vital role in building the residuary state of Andhra Pradesh up from scratch.
Maintaining that there was a need for able leadership to channelise people’s energies, Mr Naidu appealed to voters to give his party an overwhelming mandate in Andhra Pradesh so that he could provide stable governance. “If you elect 80 to 90 TD legislators, my energies would be spent on keeping the flock together and prevent defections. I will have no time to develop the state,” he said.
Revealing his vision for the development of the new state at an interaction session organised with people of different walks of life, Mr Naidu assured to build a “Swarnandhrapradesh”, a slogan which had earlier given him mixed results. While the electorate gave him a chance to build ‘Swarnan-dhrapradesh’ in 1999, the slogan failed to cut ice in the subsequent polls. The programme “The leader – meet the people” was organised by the AP Journalists’ Forum. The participants included noted industrialists J.A. Chowdary, Mr Yarlagadda Harishchandra Prasad, “Sujana” Chowdary, farmers’ leader Chengal Reddy and APNGO president P. Ashok Babu.
Interestingly, the contents of Mr Naidu’s vision were a repeat of his 2020 document like building knowledge hubs, surpassing China and United States in developing growth centres, improving infrastructure on par with Singapore and promoting temple tourism.
The major difference, however, is that Mr Naidu attempted to woo the younger generation, to be more precise, the first time voters, with his talk of development though it failed to get him votes in the 2004 and 2009 polls.
Ironically, Mr Naidu, who as chief minister had given a call to students to pursue their careers and avoid politics, now criticised them for being selfish and not showing any interest.
