Chief minister Chandrababu Naidu condemned the killing of party leader and Chittoor mayor Anuradha, who fell victim to the bullets of anonymous miscreants on Tuesday morning. The CM said this was an inhuman act against a woman. The miscreants barged into the municipal office at noon, overpowering the staff and attacked her. First she was shot at from the point blank range. Later, the masked miscreants attacked husband Katari Mohan with knives. He was also injured. Mohan has been shifted to the Vellore hospital for treatment. His condition is said to be critical. Immediately after the attack police shifted the couple to a local hospital, Anuradha reportedly died while on the way to the hospital. Police said the assailants pumped bullets from close quarters. Some say the assailants entered the office wearing burqas.
Police sources said the ghastly incident was the results of a previous enmity. Mohan was accused in an attempt to the murder case. The attempt was made on former MLA CK Babu, another TDP leader years back. For quite some time Mohan had been underground. He surfaced in Chittoor following her wife’s election as mayor. Mohan also contested Assembly election unsuccessfully in past.
Reacting on the incident, chief minister Naidu expressed shock at the attack on a old woman.” This is hardcore factionism. Some people are trying to create panic and scare among the public with the attacks of this type. This is highly reprehensible. I condemn it strongly,” he said.
Assuring that whoever mighty be behind this incident and howsoever big they might be, Naidu said, they would be brought to book.
” Some people wearing a mask of politics are promoting this type of culture. They inherited this murder culture from their ancestors. This is not good for the society,” he said.
” On one side smugglers and on the other perpetrators of law and order problems- wrecking the system. We will put an to these type activities. We will deal with them with iron hand,” he said.
Two people had surrendered, the CM said.
“Investigation is going. The rest of the culprits will be arrested and punished,” he said adding there was no place for culture of murder in the public life. All the attackers are identified as fro Karnataka.
Naidu condemns Chittoor Mayor’s murder
Package is no substitute for special status : YSRC
Responding to the toning down of demand for special category state status by chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu, YSR Congress today categorically said there was no substitute for special status.
The party said it would not settle for anything short of Special Status to Andhra Pradesh and stated that TDP Government was trying to prepare people in the direction of some alternative package.
“Special package can never be a substitute for special status and Chief Ministers made an attempt to dilute the issue and asked the people to settle for less. This will not be tolerated as there would be a yawning gap between the two,” party senior leader Dharmana Prasada Rao remarked on Thursday.
Strongly reacting to the remarks of Chief Minister made at a press conference at Vijayawada, he said the remark clearly indicated that the CM was leaning towards settling for a special package.
“We won’t tolerate this and fight it tooth and nail,” Dharmana announced.
The TDP leaders, who called on finance minister Arun Jaitley a day after YS Jaganmohan Reddy’ dharna in national capital, came out silently and started harping on special package, he alleged. “Many states have benefited from the special category status. AP will also get an opportunity to forge ahead under special category status. We will condemn the TDP’s changed attitude towards special status,” he said.
Unsafe in Hyd, Lokesh to shift base to Guntur
TDP is leadership is reportedly finding Hyderabad unsafe for Chandrababu Naidu’s heir apparent, Lokesh Naidu, and is planning to relocate Lokesh’s operational base to Guntur.
This is general feeling among many leaders in TDP. Lokesh, who of late has made it habit to tickle Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrababu Naidu in Twitter, may attract the wrath of the latter and even trigger a retaliation in one way or the other.
Already there has been talk that the junior Naidu would be implicated in the cash-for-vote scam.
“As Hyderabad is in the administrative control of TRS government, a sting operation or some conspiracy involving Lokesh can’t be ruled by T-government. T- state appears to be hell bent on defaming CM Naidu and Lokesh Naidu to drive them out of Hyderabad city. It is not without base if TDP leadership perceives some threat to Lokesh in Hyderabad,” said a TDP functionary.
Chief minister Naidu is expected to rejig the party structure soon in order to give bigger responsibility to Lokesh.
Lokesh, now coordinator of TDP Workers Welfare Fund, will have a bigger say in the party affairs of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.
“Guntur is safest place of Lokesh as it falls in the territorail Jurisdiction of Andhra Pradesh. He will be spending three to four days in Guntur and devote rest of the days of week to tours. That way he will hardly be staying in Hyderabad out of bounds for T-agencies,” sources in TDP said.
To facilitate Lokesh’s operation from Guntur, party is setting up its AP’s headquarters in Guntur. Party’s district office located in Guntur will be upgraded as state party office. Once the arrangement are done, Lokesh base will relocated to Guntur,” the sources added.
Telugu party’s English problem
Chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu is said to have barred TDP MPs and ministers from appearing on English channels because of their articulation problem.
This decision, if true, might be the fallout of “poor performance” of some ministers and TDP leaders in the debate of an English Channel, known for its unreasonable aggressiveness and urban arrogance, organized following the death of 30 devotees in the stampede occurred on the first day of pushkarlu at Rajahmundry.
The CM is said to have asked only some MPs like Galla Jayadev, who he believes are masters of English language, to appear before the English Channels and put forth effectively the point of view of TDP.
Though outwardly the decision looks innocuous, it goes against the spirit of great transformation the Telugu Desam party and the founder of party NTR heralded in the politics of erstwhile Andhra Pradesh. NTR is remembered for many firsts. one such First is the vernacularisation politics. At a time when politics were controlled by landed gentry and barristers, NTR, in tune with the times, opened flood gates to ordinary people to enter politics. His strategy to hit at the Congress was to deploy an army of leaders from weaker sections into the party. One of the reasons for enormous mass following of the TDP was that people suddenly started finding their own men, ordinarily looking men, who were part of their own crowd and community and who wandered in their colonies, villages etc were becoming leaders.
These leaders of weaker sections were bus conductors, school teachers, community workers, housewives etc and were the products of an education system where Telugu was the medium of instruction.
TDP instilled so much self-confidence among these sections that the backward classes of the state owned the party and supported it.
Even Justice Sri Krihna, in his report on the Telangana issue, acknowledged that weaker section were the backbone of Telugu Desam party.
The leaders such as Yerrannaidu, Devender Goud, Motku Narasimhulu, K E Krishnamurthy, Yanamala Ramakrishnudu, Manda Jagannadham, Kala Venkata Rao, Nimmala Kistappa, Kalava Srinivasulu, Vanga Geetha, N Siva Prasad, B Partha Sarathi are all products of TDP politics of weaker sections. All are leaders in their areas in their own right. They are not great orators in English like outstanding parliamentarians of yesteryears, who were immensely benefited by the English education and family background. But these TDP leaders speak the language of people.
So, the decision of Naidu will subject them to embarrassment and feeling of inferiority complex before the English speaking anchors, who come from upper echelons of society and known for their snobbishness and unruly behavior.
No doubt, speaking English has added advantages, but it should not be construed as a virtue. Naidu should not forget the roots of his party. Few French, German, Russian, Chinese and Japan politicians speak English. They never consider this as a handicap. It is the headache of the English journalists to have interpreters if they want sons of the soil in panel debates.
These days media debates are not conducted to elicit truth but to defeat the other point of view, to smash the other into pieces as if in duel by using many tools such as rude behavior, not giving chance to the others to speak, to promote his pre-conceived views and political ideology, and pitting a rural politicians against the urban English educated gentlemen.
Barring Telugu leaders from participating in the debates of English channels sounds a bit unreasonable.
Book 420 case against Talasani : Shabbir and Gandra
Congress floor leader in Telangan Legislative Council Md Ali Shabbir and senior leader Gandra Venkataramana Reddy demanded that a 420 case should be booked against commercial taxes minister Talasani Srinivasa Yadava for lying on the status of his resignation.
Talasani, who got elected to Assembly as TDP member from Hyderabad’s Sananth Nagar constituency, later defected to TRS which inducted him into cabinet. Congress and TDP have been demanding his resignation and the TDP filed petition with speaker for his disqualification under anti-defection law. Before joining TRS, they said, Talasani had lied to the Governor, Speaker and the Chief Minister abut his resignation as TDP member. The Congress leaders had a sought a copy from Speaker’s office.
But, Shabbir and Reddy contradicted his claim that he had resigned from Assembly. “We had applied for a copy of his resignation letter from Speaker’s office under RTI Act. Speaker’s office clarified that they had not received any resignation from Talasani Srinivas Yadav,” Shabbir said accusing the minister of misleading the Governor, Speaker and the people of the state.
How could KCR talk of model governance in Telangana when he himself allowed a TDP member , who had not resigned from the party and Assembly, to become a cabinet minister, Gandra asked.
They both demanded that either the minister resign immediately and be disqualified by the speaker under anti-defection law.
