All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam general secretary J. Jayalaithaa on Friday appealed to former Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu to give up his fast, saying his life “was far too precious to be sacrificed at the altar of cut-throat politics”.
“I would like to point out that your life is far too precious to be sacrificed at the altar of cut-throat politics.
You have to be around to take up many more public causes. As such I call upon you to treat this as my personal request to you to kindly give up your fast and take the protest to a different level,” she said in a statement in Chennai.
“Public interest will ultimately triumph,” she said.
Appreciating Mr. Naidu’s concern for the people of Andhra Pradesh, she said “however, it is with considerable apprehension that I learn that your fast has entered the eighth day without eliciting any response from the state government”.
She added: “It is a pity that Gandhian methods of protest, which were so effective against the British, are totally lost on Gandhi’s Congress party that is in power both at the Centre and in Andhra Pradesh.”
Mr. Naidu, who has been on the fast pressing for compensation to rain-hit farmers, was on forcibly shifted to the Intensive Care Unit of a hospital in Hyderabad after his health condition worsened.
Doctors took the help of the police to shift Mr. Naidu to the ICU as he refused to be moved. The authorities invoked the order issued by the Metropolitan Magistrate Court on December 21 to forcibly carry out their operation.
