Andhra Pradesh Assembly on Tuesday witnessed uproarious scenes after Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu demanded an apology from the Opposition Leader Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy for “misleading people on the Polavaram project” through a Telugu daily owned by his family.
Intervening in the discussion on ‘River linkage in the State’, raised under Rule 344 in the Assembly on Tuesday, Mr. Chandrababu Naidu gave a spirited rebuttal to Mr. Jagan’s charge that by taking up the Pattiseema lift irrigation project, the government would keep the Polavaram project on the backburner.
Reading out the minutes of the Polavaram Project Authority’s first meeting held in Delhi on Monday, Mr. Naidu said the Authority had recommended continuing all existing contracts to be operated by the State government, and that it had also resolved to recommend reimbursement of expenditure on the Polavaram project.
“Yet, your paper without any ethics went ahead and wrote all lies to mislead people and create impediments to the project, and you come and shed crocodile tears in the House and say that the project will be delayed. A newspaper should be wary of facts before writing on a sensitive subject. People of such doublespeak would do great harm to the State,” Mr. Naidu said.
But Mr. Jagan’s reply that newspapers would do their work, and political parties should do theirs only drew more protests.
Earlier Mr. Jagan had said that diverting Godavari waters to benefit Rayalaseema was not Mr. Naidu’s idea. “Leaders have been striving for that since 1970, but ultimately the work on Polavaram started only during Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy’s tenure, and 70 per cent of the right bank canal was completed.
Pattiseema project
Though the government said that the Pattiseema project was for diverting 80 tmc of Godavari waters to Rayalaseema, the GO on Pattiseema did not say so,” he added.
He alleged that while Godavari received floods only for 60 days according to the CWC data, the government claimed it was 130 days.
“If you say 130 days, farmers would not spare you,” Mr. Jagan said.
The Chief Minister said it was late N.T. Rama Rao who had started Hundri Neeva and Galeru Nagari projects for Rayalaseema. “Your father Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy was made Chief Minister, but he failed to give the promised water to Rayalaseema,” Mr. Naidu said. Ministers Atchannaidu, Deveneni Umamaheswara Rao, Ravela Kishore Babu and P. Pulla Rao lashed out at Jagan for the newspaper report and insisted that he should first apologise and then speak.
As the din continued, the Speaker adjourned the House for the day.
