Andhra Pradesh Congress chief   N Raghuvira Reddy urged Prime Minister Narendera Modi to stop his ‘Mann Ki Baat’ program for once and take up ‘Mitti  Ki Baat’ instead in the interest of the five crore  people of Andhra Pradesh.

Writing a letter the PM on the subject he said this program, Mitti Ki Baat  was necessary in view of the significance the Mitti acquired in the recent days. Prime Minister while coming to Amaravati to lay the foundation stone for the construction of new capital brought  some soil from Parliament premises and water from  river Yamuna and presented them to chief minister  Chandrababu Naidu.  From then on wards,  the Prime Minister and his gift of ‘Mitti and Pani’ has  become a  butt of joke in Andhra Pradesh.  The criticism against PM Modi was that when people were demanding special category status to Andhra Pradesh, the PM washed off his hands by sprinkling some mitti and pani on the state which was in throes of bifurcation.  In a symbolic protest, AP Congress asked the people of Andhra Pradesh to send some soil and water from their places to PM Modi and demand implementation of the assurance ie according special category status to AP. Thousands of packs of mitti  has already been sent to PMO by courier.

In this connection, Raghuvira dashed off a letter to the Prime Minister today asking him to set aside his favorite Mann Ki Baath  instead  run Mitti Ki Baat  for the benefit of the people of the state. “Sir, you are conducting ‘Mann ki Baat’ on various issues once every month. So far you have done 13 editions of this radio talk show. We urge you to please conduct one special interactive edition titled ‘Mitti ki Baat’ exclusively with the people of Andhra Pradesh on special status to AP, tax incentives for industry, special package to Rayalaseema and north Coastal Andhra, bridging the revenue deficit of the bifurcated state, funding for construction of Amaravati as state capital, early completion of Polavaram project and all outstanding and unresolved issues in the AP Reorganisation Act,” Raghuvira said in the letter.

” Sir, we assure you that this ‘Mitti ki Baat’ edition with Andhra people would get tremendous attention. The reason for this is people would directly call you on live radio and explain why the promises made in Parliament are so important and sacred to them. This would be a tremendous opportunity for you as head of government and one of the most admired persons in the world, as per the  World Economic Forum, to listen to  voices right from the ground level. Five crore people from AP are eagerly waiting for you to grant them this opportunity as they believe that ‘Mitti ki Baat’ would finally help them convince you about their real need,” he said.