VIJAYAWADA: Former minister and BJP leader Kanna Lakshminarayana on Thursday said that the people had elected Chandrababu Naidu as a ‘temporary Chief Minister’. He said the people of Andhra Pradesh were dissatisfied with the State government and alleged that the TDP government was cheating the people of the State by projecting its own failures, corrupt governance and incompetence as the fault of the BJP.
Speaking to reporters here, Kanna Lakshminarayana said, “With the funds granted by the Centre, you (Naidu) did not even finalise the master plan of the capital, leave alone laying foundation-stone for permanent structures. You have built temporary secretariat, then built Pattiseema Lift Irrigation project as a temporary arrangement even while the Centre is funding Polavaram project. The people elected you in 2014 as a temporary... stopgap Chief Minister.”
The BJP leader said CM Naidu did not want to set up a special purpose vehicle (SPV), as suggested by the Centre, to draw funds for externally-aided projects as the arrangement would not allow him to spend money as per his wishes.“That is why, he made it a political issue and is blaming the BJP. The Centre is committed to implementation of what was promised by it. The incompetence and corrupt practices of the State government led to the present situation,” he said.
Observing that Naidu’s Delhi visit was a ‘flop’, the former minister said, “Naidu mortgaged the self-respect of the people of AP the Parliament’s doorstep by posing for photographs for publicity. No national leader showed interest in meeting Naidu. His visit was for political gains and it was a flop,” he claimed.
‘Runaway CM’ Kanna Lakshminarayana alleged that CM Naidu ‘ran away’ from Hyderabad after being caught red-handed in the cash-for-vote scam. “When the law gave 10 years’ time for Naidu to stay in Hyderabad and build a capital, he ran away to AP like a thief as he was exposed in the scam. But he claims that he moved to AP in the interest of public,” he said.
He further alleged that corruption was rampant in the Naidu government and attacked the TDP supremo for ‘misusing and squandering’ public money.“While the people are suffering, he (Naidu) used public money to visit foreign countries in the name of bringing investments. He failed to relocate Heritage, his family-owned company which has a turnover of Rs 3,500 crore, to Andhra Pradesh in the last four years and is paying taxes to the Telangana government, but wants others to set up firms here. There are 750 TDP members with businesses of Rs 100 crore turnover, but none of them has set up a shop here,” he said.