Whether we win or lose in the coming General and Assembly elections, Jai Bharat National Party (JBNP) will serve as the third alternative to the people of Andhra Pradesh, said former joint director of CBI V.V. Lakshminarayana, popular as ‘JD’ Lakshminarayana.
Speaking to The Hindu here on Thursday, the founder of the JBNP said that all political parties have deceived the State. When the State was bifurcated, both Congress and BJP spoke about according Special Category Status to the State. In fact, the BJP included it in its 2014 election manifesto. All the parties later took a U-turn and forgot about it, he said.
Mr. Lakshminarayana said that the State had gone backward post-bifurcation because the SCS was not accorded to it; there was no investment and hence no employment generation.
Both TDP and the YSRCP spoke about getting it, but none could achieve it, he said.
“Mr. Jagan, in 2019, asked the electorate to give him 25 MPs and that he would get the SCS. The people gave him 22, but he failed at it. So did the TDP,” he said.
Both political parties failed to bargain hard for the promises made in the bifurcation bill and to stop the privatisation of the Visakhapatnam Steel Plant.
In fact, they had four good opportunities: the passage of the CAA Bill, the Presidential election, the election of the Vice President, and the passage of the Delhi Government Civil Servants Appointment. During all four times, both TDP and YSRCP could have bargained hard with the NDA government at the Centre, as without their consent, the bills would not have been passed. But they just toed the line of the NDA, said Mr. Lakshminarayana.
This is why I have started this party; so that I can give an alternative to the people and represent the case of Andhra Pradesh both in the Assembly and in the Parliament, he said.
He also added that the Union Government had dumped the blame for the non-granting of the SCS on the 14th Finance Commission, stating that the Commission had annulled all further granting of SCS. But the Chairman of the 15th Finance Commission N.K. Singh had said in his book Portraits of Power that the 14th Commission had never said so and that it was up to the Union Government to decide.
On why he chose Visakhapatnam (North) to pitch himself from, he said, “In A.P., we are contesting from 80 Assembly segments and 10 Parliament seats and from Telangana, we are contesting from five Lok Sabha seats. I chose Visakhpatnam-North, as I could garner the second-highest number of votes from this segment during the MP election in 2019. From Gajuwaka, I got about 87,000 votes, and from North, I could get around 47,000. I specifically did not opt for Gajuwaka, as I had filed a PIL in the Andhra Pradesh High Court, as an individual, against the privatisation of VSP. I did not want the people of Gajuwaka to say that the PIL was a poll gimmick, as VSP falls under this constituency.”
Mr. Lakshminarayana contested as the MP candidate from JSP in 2019 polls and stood third overall. After making an impressive political debut, he moved out of the JSP, citing reasons that he did not like Pawan Kalyan going back to acting in films. “Today, we have two major political parties that work 24/7 in politics, and one cannot afford to sail between films and politics,” he said.
On the issues plaguing the Vizag (North) constituency, he said that there are a number of issues, such as water, roads, sanitation etc. But we have released a party manifesto, wherein we have identified about 35 key issues and programmes.
He was also critical of ‘freebie’ politics and said: “The prime goal of any government should be asset creation and not push the State into a debt trap. Every political party is busy assuring freebies without caring for the financial health of the State. Their only goal is to stay in power. This is why our party is the third alternative, where we have a different narrative that focuses on wealth creation and a State free from drugs, corruption and a clean environment,” he said.
