“Jai Telangana”... “Johar YSR”...Invoking the name of her father and former Chief Minister of united Andhra Pradesh Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy, his daughter and YSR Telangana Party chief Y.S. Sharmila vowed to tread on former’s footsteps to bring back his “leadership and welfare schemes” at Chevella public meeting to signal the start of her ‘Praja Prasthana Yatra’ on Wednesday.
“There has not been a single male to question this government in last seven years. Like my father, I will stick to my word. We will go to every village, every district and every house to lend an ear to people’s problems and put the government on notice. We will also expose the sold-out Opposition for having kept silent. Equality and social justice will be our motto,” she declared.
Speaking in a calm and measured tone, Ms. Sharmila lashed out at Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao and ‘Chinna Dora’ K.T. Rama Rao, challenging the latter to join her to understand people’s woes. “KTR, you can see for yourself about people’s plight. If you think your father’s rule has been fantastic, I will apologise and withdraw. Or, you say sorry, quit and hand over administration to a Dalit,” she said.
She accused KCR of having cheated every section and had even lied on the floor of the Assembly about sanctioning three acres to Dalits. “He has no right to utter YSR name having gone back on every promise whereas the latter lived up to his word all the time,” she claimed.
Her ‘padayatra’ is for the sake of youth and students denied jobs due to lack of recruitment, lack of employment opportunities or self-employment; farmers denied loan waiver, assured price for crops; against indiscriminate inflated irrigation projects; weaker sections denied due share and so on.
“This is to end the corrupt-family rule of KCR, who has forgotten about people and did not even have the heart to include COVID treatment in Arogyasri. With government hospitals lacking infrastructure, people were forced to sell their family silver to pay exorbitant bills of private hospitals whereas the CM had a corporate hospital to take care of him,” she told the gathering.
Ms. Sharmila did not spare the Opposition either, accusing Congress president Revanth Reddy of being caught “red-handed” in the ‘vote for note’ scandal and his fate was in the CM’s hands since the case was still ‘live’. BJP rakes caste or communal issues, was hand in glove with TRS and wondered why its leaders were unable to put KCR in jail if they had the proof. She is scheduled to walk 4,000 km in 400 days covering the length and breadh of Telangana.
