Minister Rambabu dares Naidu to join discussion on Polavaram flaws

VIJAYAWADA: Water Resources Minister Ambati Rambabu has dared Leader of Opposition Chandrababu Naidu to end his boycott and attend the assembly’s monsoon session to discuss important issues including the Polavaram project.

“Irreparable damage was caused to the Polavaram project due to the faults of the previous TD government led by Naidu but he is avoiding a discussion in the assembly. While Naidu keeps boycotting the assembly, the TD MLAs are attending the sessions,” the minister said.

Addressing the media here on Wednesday, Rambabu said the damage to the diaphragm wall was caused by Chandrababu Naidu’ historical mistakes when he was CM. Refuting allegations of  Naidu that the YSRC government was responsible for the damage to the diaphragm wall, the minister challenged Naidu to participate in a discussion on this in the assembly.

He said the Naidu government had claimed it would complete the project by 2018, but dragged the works. “He made a historic mistake by constructing a diaphragm wall without completing the coffer dams and causing a loss of around Rs 2,000 to Rs 3,000 crore.”

The minister said the present Amaravati to Arasavalli Padyatra is not a march for the people. “This is a march to create differences between regions. This is a real estate people’s walk. Naidu resorted to a big land scam by laying the foundation for Amaravati capital city project, which turned out to be a big scandal.”

He recalled that retired chief secretary and BJP leader IYR Krishna Rao wrote the book 'Whose capital is Amaravati?', and the book was launched by Jana Sena founder Pawan Kalyan. “The leaders of the CPI, CPM, Congress etc always stood for decentralization of development but now they are participating in the Amaravati Walkathon and beating the TD drums.”

Rambabu questioned whether there was even a single farmer in the Amaravati Padayatra. He alleged that former minister P Narayana and  his relatives grabbed all the assigned lands from the poor at a low price, and then changed the laws, gave these lands to the government and got prime plots in return.

The capital status of Amaravati has not gone anywhere. It will remain as one of the three capitals. Decentralization is Jagan government’s goal under which Amaravati will continue as Legislative Capital and the rest of regions will also developed to avoid a conflict between the three regions in future, he said.