Congress minister Chiranjeevi says Telugu Desam ignored Backward class in ticket allocation
Rajahmundry: AP Congress campaign committee chairman K. Chiranjeevi expressed confidence that the Congress would win a respectable number of both Parliamentary and Assembly seats in the state.
Speaking to reporters here on Thursday, he credited the Congress for maintaining social justice in the allocation of more seats to SCs, BCs, minorities and other sections, and added that even general category seats were being allotted to people from the reserved categories.
He criticised the Telugu Desam for failing to implement social justice in the allocation of seats, and said that several people from BC communities, Brahmins, Muslims, minorities and women, were denied a chance to contest in the polls.
He made a mockery of the TD’s claims of BC and Kapu declarations as it failed to field people from these communities. He blamed TD chief N. Chandrababu Naidu for denying a chance to a Muslim leader to contest from the Hindupur Assembly segment in Anantapur district by giving the seat to film actor Nandamuri Balakrishna.
The Congress leader was critical about the TD-BJP alliance. He said how TD chief Naidu could support the BJP’s prime ministerial nominee Narendra Modi when he himself blamed him for the Godhra riots. He also wondered as to how Naidu could ally with the BJP as he expressed regrets for joining the latter after suffering a debacle in the last elections.
Mr Chiranjeevi asked why the Telugu Desam was not contesting on its own.
Reacting to TD chief Naidu's claims that he developed Cyberabad and infrastructure in Hyderabad, the Congress leader flayed him for failing to develop rural areas too.
Mr Chiranjeevi alleged that Modi was trying to dominate the BJP by ignoring the interests of senior leaders like former PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee, L.K. Advani, Murali Manohar Joshi and Jaswant Singh and others and described him as a power-monger like Hitler.
Regarding YSRC chief Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy, Chiranjeevi alleged that Jagan had amassed huge wealth through illegal means during the regime of Y.S.R. Reddy.
Reacting to the claims of Jai Samaikhyandhra chief and former CM N. Kiran Kumar Reddy that he sacrificed his CMs post to keep the state united, the Congress leader said that no sacrifice was done by him and added that he was left alone as his loyalists had deserted him. He blamed Kiran for failing to solve the problems arising out of the bifurcation.
He made a fervent appeal to people to punish leaders like Modi, Naidu, Jagan and Kiran as they had failed to protect public interests. AP Congress campaign committee vice-chairman Dokka Manikya Varaprasad said that both Chiranjeevi and his brother and Jana Sena chief Pawan Kalyan were having the same goal, that is to serve the people, but their approaches were different.
