Not for power; promise government for the poor: Jagan Mohan Reddy

Hyderabad: YSR Congress president Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy on Sunday ruled out any tie-up with the Congress before or after the elections. He however, kept his options open on supporting the BJP-led NDA after the elections.

Speaking to mediapersons after releasing the party’s election manifesto at his residence on Sunday, Mr Jagan Mohan Reddy expressed confidence that his party would sweep the polls in AP and would also get a good number of seats in Telangana.

The YSRC chief said that he had not come into politics for power. He said that AICC president Sonia Gandhi had offered him a Central minister’s post with a promise to make him CM if he stopped his Odarpu yatra. He, however, rejected the offer as he wanted to stick to the word he had given to the people.

“My dream is to put my photo beside YSR’s photo in every poor man’s house in the state. I came into politics to achieve that,” he said.

The YSRC chief promised a government that would touch every poor man’s heart. He added that balancing welfare and development and building a new state with opportunities and welfare schemes that would touch every section of the society, besides providing clean and transparent governance, were the focal points of his party’s manifesto.

He added that the party’s manifesto had been inspired by the late YSR’s rule. Though the party released separate election manifestos for AP and Telangana, Mr Jagan Mohan Reddy spoke only about the AP manifesto in his one-and-a-half-hour-long speech.

Speaking about Telangana, he said that his sister, Sharmila, would take up the Odarpu yatra in the state.