“The Vice-President’s job is challenging and demanding but it keeps me away from public life. Since the beginning, I have been a public man and now I find it difficult to manage. Had I been the Minister for a little longer time, I would have got whatever demand is still pending for A.P.,” said Vice-President M. Venkaiah Naidu.
Speaking at a high tea programme here on Friday, he said, “The Vice-Presidentship has come all of a sudden to me. Till that time I was a party man and a Minister and whatever was possible I had done for the State. But had I continued, I would have done Justice to A.P.”
When the State was bifurcated, I was saddened not because it was bifurcated. But because it lacked the resources and huge amount was invested in Hyderabad, he said.
“Visakhapatnam is now a major knowledge hub and almost all the Central institutes have been sanctioned and only the tribal university is still pending,” he said.
House disruptions
Centre-State cooperation was the need of the hour for a holistic development of the State and the country, he said.
Highly critical of the present condition in Parliament and State Assembly, he said, “Government with a mandate should be allowed to function and it cannot be disrupted by raising a pandemonium in the Houses. Political parties have the liberty to treat each other as rivals but not as enemies. In the process, the country is suffering, as a number of Bills have remained pending.”
Mr. Venkaiah Naidu advocated strong people’s participation. “It is the key to good democracy,” he said.
He pointed out that education, agriculture and culture were his key areas now.
“We must move towards research-oriented education, we must have home grown food security and not depend on import food security and move away from western culture to revive our traditional culture,” he said.
According to him, a cultural renaissance was the need of the hour.
Talking of Visakhapatnam, he said, “Though I hail from Nellore, my foundation was laid here, as this is where I had completed my higher studies in AU and had my political beginning.”
