AP witnessing class war, not caste war, says Jagan

Vijayawada: Andhra Pradesh has been witnessing a class war between the poor and the capitalists, and not a caste rivalry, Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy has asserted.

In a sharp criticism against the opposition Telugu Desam, Jana Sena and others for their efforts to grab power, the Chief Minister advised the poor not to commit the mistake of trusting the opposition as they would “ruin” them.

Addressing a public meeting at the Government Arts College grounds in Rajamahendravaram in East Godavari district on Tuesday, the CM said Telugu Desam chief N. Chandrababu Naidu was having the support of his friendly media and the ‘adopted son’ (Jana Sena chief Pawan Kalyan).

“They are striving hard to help Chandrababu get back to power while I am having the kindness from God and blessings from the people.” He said though Naidu trusted his friendly media and the adopted son, he trusted the poor, the SCs, STs, BCs and minorities for their support.

“I am fighting against the forces that are set against the poor. They are against the introduction of English as a medium of instruction in schools and criticise even the sanction of houses to the poor. When I do good to the poor, these forces are alleging that I am causing an economic crisis in AP as had happened in Sri Lanka. I want the support of you all and God to enable me to do more good to the poor,” Jagan said.

He termed Naidu and his supporters as a gang of looters who adopted the policy of ‘Dochuko-Panchuko-Thinuko’. “There was no system of pressing a button to transfer money to the bank accounts of beneficiaries of welfare schemes until my government introduced it.”

Jagan blamed Naidu for cheating the people by not fulfilling his promise of a waiver of loans to the farmers to the extent of Rs 87,617 crore and also to self-help group women, of Rs 14,204 crore, between 2014 and 2019. Naidu as CM had also failed to give an unemployment stipend of Rs 2,000 despite coming up with a colourful manifesto with so many promises, Jagan said.

He described Naidu as blood thirsty as he “caused” the death of three persons in Guntur and eight persons in Kandukur recently in stampede and even 29 devotees in a stampede during the Godavari Maha Pushkarams in 2015, as “he wanted photo shoot and drones to get high publicity.”

The CM began his speech to the lusty cheers from the youth and announced that the monthly pension for social security was enhanced to Rs 2,750 to benefit the aged persons, widows, those who were involved in various occupations and those suffering from chronic health problems.

He said that at present, nearly 64 lakh families were being given the enhanced pensions in the state. “We are providing welfare pension benefit from Rs 2,750 to Rs 10,000 and we are also providing a chance to people twice in a year to apply for pension -- during July or December. Hence, those who were left out would also get the benefit.

Accordingly, several new beneficiaries were added for schemes like rice cards, Aarogyasri and sanction of house site pattas, he said.

The CM said 44,543 new beneficiaries were added for the rice scheme, taking the total number of beneficiaries to 1.45 crore. Some 14,401 new beneficiaries were added to the Aarogyasri scheme, taking the total to 1.41 crore; and 14,531 new beneficiaries were added for the house site pattas, taking the total to 30.29 lakh beneficiaries, he said.

The Chief Minister drew a comparison between his term and the previous TD term in the disbursal of pensions. When TD offered a pension of `1,000 per month for only two months before 2019, with the total number of beneficiaries at 39 lakh, the YSRC government started issuing pensions in the range of Rs 2,750 to Rs 10,000 to 64.6 lakh beneficiaries, he said.

When the TD government spent Rs 400 crore on pensions per month, the YSRC government was spending Rs 1,565 crore per month and Rs 21,180 crore per annum. So far, we gave pensions worth Rs 62,500 crore in the last three-and-half-years of our rule.”

“We have also introduced a new system of governance by appointing 2.66 volunteers and recruited 1.30 lakh staff for village/ward secretariats in the state, who are reaching benefits of the welfare schemes to the doorsteps of the people.”

The CM said all eligible persons would be given the pensions without any discrimination on any ground, unlike the previous TD government that used to make people go round and round at government offices to get their pension sanctioned.