AP GOVT REACTS ON PLAINT OF HEALTH OFFICIALS

Some passengers said that they have to travel as far as villages in the Godavari districts.

The Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy-led Andhra Pradesh government too did not react to the impending danger when vernacular TV news channels began airing stories of Telangana police issuing passes to people to travel to AP.

Only after the Andhra Pradesh state health authorities complained to state Chief Secretary Nilam Sawhney and the Chief Minister’s Office against the influx, and the risk it brought, did the top brass react.

“We can’t rule out the possibility of some of the entrants being carriers of Coronavirus. We told higher authorities that we are already exhausted and can’t take further workload, which is avoidable,” a senior doctor involved in providing healthcare to Covid positive patients told Deccan Chronicle on condition of anonymity.

Back in Andhra Pradesh, it was realpolitik that punctured a larger cause of the nation’s safety and resolve to fight the dreaded Covid-19. The ruling YSR Congress Party and principal opposition Telugu Desam competed with each other to welcome “our own people.”

While TD leaders questioned the stopping of our own people from entering our state, the ruling party MLA S Udayabhanu reached the spot and negotiated with the police to let them in. Chief Minister Jagan Mohan Reddy directed the state police to allow them after conducting health check-ups.

Later, the government issued a press release stating that municipal minister Botsa Satyanarayana spoke to his Telangana counterpart K.T. Rama Rao and brought to the latter’s notice that it was “not advisable” at this juncture for students and youth to move out. The official press statement further said officials of the AP CMO and Chief Secretary spoke to their TS counterparts.

Meanwhile, to avoid congestion on National Highway 65, several people took to different routes but were stuck beause local villagers at several places obstructed their movements. Tension prevailed in areas like Budhavaram, when locals prevented them from proceeding further. “I only heard of the travails of people who migrated, forced out of their homes, overnight from Pakistan to India during the 1947Partition, with death hovering around. I feel like that, thrown out of a hostel in Hyderabad, and now stuck at AP border, disowned by both, surrounded by fear and uncertainty ahead,” said a youth stuck at the border.