Naidu says Governor trying to topple him
Charge follows knife attack on YSR chief Jagan Reddy.
Andhra Pradesh Chief Minster and TDP president N. Chandrababu Naidu on Saturday alleged that Governor E.S.L. Narasimhan was trying to topple his government on the pretext of law and order failure in the wake of the knife attack on Opposition leader Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy at Visakhapatnam airport two days ago.
Naidu sharpened his attack against both Jagan and the Governor since Thursday evening and rushed to Delhi to meet his party MPs and leaders of other like-minded parties and brief them about the situation in Andhra. The TDP president addressed a media conference at the Constitution Club in Delhi on Saturday afternoon. Naidu met Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, JDU leader Sharad Yadav, CPI leader Sudhakar Reddy, former J&K Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah, among others.
Naidu was particularly angry with the phone call of Narasimhan to AP DGP R.P. Thakur on Thursday afternoon to seek a report on the attack on Jagan at the airport. “How can the Governor directly call up the DGP? He is not the chief executive of the state, as I am the CM, he (Gov- ernor) should have called me for details,” said Naidu while addressing a district collectors’ conference at Amaravati on Friday evening.
The CM criticised Narasimhan for calling up Jagan within minutes after the knife attack and said there appeared to be a big conspiracy to topple his elected government and impose President’s Rule in Andhra Pradesh, on the ground of breakdown of law and order. “I am a born fighter and TDP has vehemently opposed the post of Governor right from our inception in 1983,” said Naidu.
Naidu has been maintaining that the attack on Jagan was a stage-managed affair by the party leaders and it was intended to garner sympathy to their leader. “It is all part of a game plan to defame me and my government and remove me from the post of CM. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is behind the entire sequence of events and Jagan is a pawn in the hands of the party,” said Naidu.
Taking a cue from the CM, Minister Somireddy Chandramohan Reddy launched an attack on Narasimhan and asked while talking to media persons at Vijayawada: “How can a person continue in the post of Governor for 12 years and be a Governor to the same state for 10 years?” Reddy said that a pubic rally would be held in Kadapa, Jagan’s native district, on 30 October, to fight against the Governor’s role.
Naidu’s son and IT Minister Nara Lokesh, too, tweeted that “Jagan had enacted a drama (“Jagannatakam”) in the form of a stage managed knife attack on himself and was trying to get sympathy. How can a knife used in cock fights be used to murder anyone? Moreover, the youth was a supporter of Jagan,” said Lokesh and blamed the Centre for allowing the airport to be used for the attack.
Naidu told his MPs in Delhi that there was a need to fight against the BJP-led Centre’s recent war against his government in the form of income tax raids, attack on Jagan etc. “Our leader told us to reach to other like-minded parties in our battle against the BJP. We will play an active role in the anti-BJP front,” TDP MP Konakalla Narayana told this newspaper.
The Election Commission (EC) of India has fixed an upper limit of Rs 28 lakh for expenditure of a candidate in the coming Assembly elections in Telangana. However, reports have indicated that some candidates in urban and agriculturally rich constituencies are readying to spend as much as above Rs 10 crore. The poll panel has sought the help of the police in tracking the misuse of money power.
According to independent election observing groups, Telangana is one of the few states in the country that are notorious for unbridled election expenditure, mostly spent in the form of bribing the voters, both individually and collectively. Of the total 119 Assembly constituencies in the state, there are at least 40 seats where candidates spend over Rs 10 crore on electioneering.
The Chief Election Officer (CEO) of EC, who looks after the 7 December Assembly elections, has taken cognizance of reports of large scale use of money power in Telangana and sought the assistance of the police The attack on YSR Congress president Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy at Visakhapatnam airport on Thursday has turned into a fresh political battle between the party and ruling TDP. While YSR Congress has said that “it was a cold blooded murder attempt planned by TDP men”, the ruling party claimed that “it was a stage managed stunt, to draw publicity”. The TDP also said that the BJP was trying to use the incident to destabilise the Naidu government in Andhra.
Jagan Mohan Reddy was stabbed in the left shoulder by a youth at Visakhapatnam airport at 12.30 pm on Thursday and is out of danger after he was treated at a private hospital in Hyderabad later in the evening. However, the attack kicked off a political storm in Andhra politics, with both the ruling TDP and Opposition parties blaming each other for the incident.