The Hindu : Amalapuram bypoll: MSR leaves decision to Sonia

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Apr 30, 2002

Southern States

Southern States - Andhra Pradesh

Amalapuram bypoll: MSR leaves decision to Sonia

By Our Special Correspondent

HYDERABAD April 29. The PCC president, M. Satyanarayana Rao, said here on Monday that the decision to contest the Amalapuram byelection had been left to the party high command.

Talking to presspersons, he said he raised the issue with Sonia Gandhi during her recent visit to the State but told her that the opinion of the local leadership would be conveyed to her.

On the Chief Minister's criticism of Ms. Gandhi's visit, he said the former had no right to talk about the visit and it was also wrong to say that more money was spent on her trip to Anantapur (as alleged by the BJP).

She had every right to hand over whatever relief she could and if it was wrong that the AICC spent some money on her visit, then it was equally wrong that Central leaders were visiting many places including Gujarat where the expenditure on them could as well be spent on rehabilitation.

He ridiculed the claim that farmers were committing suicide for the sake of relief and said it was idiotic to say so. He said he had never criticised the Janmabhoomi programme but only said the ruling party workers were hijacking the authority of elected representatives.

Referring to the Congress MLAs' decision to join the foreign jaunt being sponsored by the Government, he said if it was wrong to go, then he was also guilty of approving it on behalf of the PCC.

He thanked party activists and officials for making Ms. Gandhi's visit a success.

`Govt. siding with millers': The vice-president of the AP Congress Committee, K. Rami Reddy, here on Monday accused the State Government of allowing millers to go scot free despite their not giving the Minimum Support Price to farmers during the current rabi season too.

The Rythu Bandhu programme was not being implemented properly to benefit the farmers and no farmer was storing his produce at marketyards. The scheme, if implemented properly, would be a boon to the farmer as 75 per cent advance would be given to them by the marketyards to overcome his financial constraints, he said.

Mr. Rami Reddy said the millers were buying rice released by the Food Corporation of India under the Food-for-Work programme and adjusting it against the levy quota thus neglecting the Government's stipulations. To threaten them with cancellation of licence was ridiculous as the system was no more in vogue. Moreover, many rice millers had leased out their premises, he said.

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