Minister challenges Naidu for debate on comparison of attacks on Dalits
VIJAYAWADA: Social Welfare Minister Merugu Nagarjuna claimed on Sunday that Chief Minister Jagan Reddy has, by now, implemented 98.44 per cent of the poll promises he had made to the people in the YSRC’s 2019 election manifesto.
By contrast, Chandrababu Naidu as first chief minister of the state, “more noises, did less” and failed to fulfill his TD election manifesto promises. Naidu gave nearly 600 promises in his manifesto during the 2014 election but did not fulfill even one of them, the minister alleged while addressing a press meet here.
He asked why the poor must beg for food in the Naidu-era Anna canteens when the government is providing the necessary welfare schemes to every poor in AP. He said Naidu was a traitor to the Dalits.
Refuting the allegations from Naidu of increased attacks on Dalits and the poor in AP, Nagarjuna challenged the former CM to face him in a public debate to determine whether this indeed was the case. Did attacks, rapes and atrocities on Dalits happen more during Chandrababu’s term or the terms of YS Rajasekhar Reddy and Jagan Reddy, he asked.
The minister claimed that the Jagan-led government provides security and justice to Dalits and “we are ready to prove this with facts and figures” to Naidu and other TD leaders.
Recalling the claim of Naidu that geographical imbalance will register if land is given to SCs in the capital region, Nagarjuna said this showed Naidu’s anti-Dalit attitude and contempt towards suppressed communities.
On the call for restart of Anna canteens initiated during Naidu’s term, the minister asked, “Why the poor have to beg in Anna Canteens when the present government is providing necessary welfare schemes to all the poor?”
Nagarjuna said Chandrababu did injustice to SC and ST children by non-implementation of schemes like Kalyanalakshmi and Shaadi Mubarak. Even though BC castes were included as beneficiaries in these schemes in 2017, they did not get any benefit and these schemes did not benefit the needy sections during the TD government, he alleged.
The minister explained that in 2018-19, when TD was in power, 17,709 people were stopped from receiving financial assistance for marriages, and as high as Rs 68 crore remained as dues to BCs that the Jagan government later came and cleared.
