Vijayawada: Political circles are full of animated discussions on the chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu’s Davos tour.
Opposition parties decry the state government’s spending of more than Rs 10 crores for the tour, which they dismiss as just a publicity stunt, since not even a single MoU will be signed.
On the social media platform, it is being circulated that the World Economic Forum meet hadn’t listed the Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu’s name among the speakers. It also mentioned that the state government had purchased a pavilion at the meet, and put up a vernacular show.
Communication Advisor Parakala Prabhakar had dismissed all these allegations saying the Forum was a rare opportunity to meet all the bigwigs of the industrial world, for which they had received an official invitation from WEF. It was hoped that this would yield fruitful results in future, as the tour had been successfully completed by promoting the Sunrise AP brand.
APCC Vice President and former speaker Nadendla Manohar demanded that the chief minister present a white paper to clear the allegations and doubts among the public about the 5- day Davos tour. He also questioned the establishment of Gherzi textile mega park, worth Rs 2,000 crore, announced at the 2016 Davos tour.
On this 2017 Davos tour, it has been announced that Stadler, a Swiss rail car manufacturer, was going to establish a unit at Vizag, but this has been denied by Stadler that said that Vizag is a possible location which had been evaluated. (An article had been published on the same in DC.)
Mr Manohar also said APCC is demanding an explanation on how many employment opportunities had been provided and how much investments had been brought to the state with the expenditure of Rs 40 crore spent on CII Summit, 2016, and Rs 8 crore on the Davos tour, 2017.
YSRC MLA G Srikanth Reddy said the Davos tour is just a publicity stunt by the Chief Minister, and criticised him for spending his time in places for his personal purposes, rather than concentrating on public issues, stating that he is ‘branding’ for the state to attract foreign investments to the state.
Mr Parakala Prabhakar, issued an official press release stating the news circulating in some quarters that the chief minister was not a special invitee to the WEF and that his name did not figure in the list of speakers, was patently false and amounted to false propaganda.
