Hold rural polls: Pawan Kalyan to CM N Chandrababu Naidu

Rajahmundry: Lambasting the TD government for failing to hold gram panchayat polls fearing adverse outcome, Jana Sena chief, Pawan Kalyan, threatened to stir up a movement with former gram sarpanches to mount pressure upon the government to conduct the polls immediately.

The Jana Sena chief led a historic march with the participation of a large number of party supporters on Sir Arthur Cotton barrage across the Godavari river starting from Pichuka Lanka to Dowleswaram, covering a distance of about 2.5 km on Monday. 

Addressing a public meeting soon after the march, he said that villagers were facing hardships for want of basic amenities in their villages and flayed the state government for failing to hold elections to the gram panchayats. Referring to CM Chandrababu Naidu’s claims of keeping a close vigil in villages to find out whether streetlights were glowing, Mr Kalyan advised him to concentrate on maintenance of law and order and other issues in the state while leaving such petty issues to the gram sarpanches. 

He targeted Mr Naidu’s son and minister for panchayat raj, Mr Lokesh, and wondered as to what he knew about the panchayat raj and development of infrastructure in villages. He said, “People can inherit the surname of father, physical features, DNA, and properties but not political power. I advise Lokesh as an elder brother to acquire the skills of governance so that he can inherit political power from his father.”

Explaining about his family background, Mr Kalyan said that his great grandfather worked as  municif, his grandfather as postman, while his father worked as a police constable and asked as to why it was not possible for him to become the Chief Minister of the state. 

He turned critical of Mr Naidu for failing to lead an all-party delegation to the Centre to demand sanction of special category status to AP and asked him to call an all-party meet to discuss the issue and go to Delhi to mount pressure upon the BJP led NDA government to sanction special tag. 

The Jana Sena chief flayed the state government for trying to bring in the contributory pension scheme and wondered as to how government servants could be put to hardship after serving the state government for so long. He said he wished to implement a regular pension scheme once his party was elected to power.  He expressed his support to workers from the unorganised sector and assured them of  providing welfare once his party was elected to power. He vowed to safeguard the interests of people belonging to SC, ST, BC, women and Muslim minorities.

Reacting to the criticism that Jana Sena was being soft on BJP and the Prime Minister, Mr Kalyan said that he was the one who targeted the BJP for failing to accord special tag and for failing fulfil poll promises and added that he was showing respect for the office of the Prime Minister. He asked Mr Naidu to come forward to visit Delhi and fight with the Centre to get what was due for AP. 

As the youngsters started cheering the Jana Sena chief lustily as ‘CM’ repeatedly, he asked them to vote for him along with all their friends and family members so that the party could win the elections with a thumping majority in 2019.

Meanwhile, the police had a tough time in controlling the crowd, especially the youth, as they perched on iron frames supporting the electric transformers and on billboards, old buildings and trees. Power supply in the area was disrupted to prevent the youth from being electrocuted. As the youth climbed on a old building, a portion of it caved in causing minor injuries.