When Naidu was likened to a ‘pehalwan’

YSR Congress MLA B. Rajendranath Reddy has reeled out quite a few anecdotes and stories in lighter vein to drive home his point that the Telugu Desam government has been whiling away time with mere promises.

While the anecdotes evoked laughter from the Opposition benches, it drew sharp retorts from the treasury benches in Assembly on Wednesday.

While criticising the State government for its failure to get special category status to Andhra Pradesh, a promise made by the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and later approved by the Union Cabinet, he narrated a story of a ‘pehalwan’ (body builder/muscle man) .

He cited an anecdote where a muscle man promised to lift a mountain if the villagers fed him for a year. When the day came to bear the burden of the mountain, the man asked the villagers to do the impossible – to lift the mountain and place it on his shoulders. Similarly Mr. Naidu who promised many things to people before elections was now shifting the blame on Centre. “It is his responsibility to get promised funds and assurances from the Centre,” he said.