VIJAYAWADA: Lok Satta founder Jayaprakash Narayan on Friday indirectly criticised Jana Sena chief Pawan Kalyan for his inconsistent approach in getting at the root of Central assistance to the State.
Speaking to mediapersons in Hyderabad, he said an Independent Group of Experts (IGE) he had formed will follow up on the report submitted by the Joint Fact-Finding Committee (JFC), which was constituted by Pawan Kalyan but later turned inactive.
He said it could be described as the second phase of the JFC. “We will start from where it was left. When JFC report was announced, we had limited data with us. Now that more information is pouring in, there is a need for further analysis of the data by the experts,” he said. According to him, IGE has three main objectives before it, the first being to determine how much of the provision of AP Reorganisation Act was implemented and to what extent promises made by the Prime Minister on the Floor of the House were implemented.
“There are several aspects which were not taken into consideration by the JFC,” he said.He said the second objective of IGE is to hold talks with officials of the Prime Minister’s Office or Finance Ministry. The third is to further study the need for autonomy to States for strengthening of federal structure in the country. Asked if he was not satisfied with Pawan Kalyan’ s JFC, he said Pawan Kalyan is a political leader and he will do his work while Lok Satta will do its own as a social organisation. “Ours is an Independent Group of Experts,” he stressed.
Meanwhile, Jana Sena chief Pawan Kalyan tweeted: “I respect and welcome Lok Satta’s ‘Sri Jayaprakash Garu’s’ initiative to continue the spirit of JFC with an independent committee comprises a team of public policy experts to probe deeper into AP Bifurcation Act and on the issue of Spl Category Status.”
Responding to Pawan Kalyan’s tweet, Jayaprakash Narayan said, “We all - governments, legislatures, parties and civil society - need to do our best to resolve disputes and improve our governance and federal system.”
The Independent Group of Experts comprises retired IPS officer C Anjaneya Reddy, Secretary General of Farmers Union P Chengal Reddy, retired IPS officer HJ Dora, 14th Finance Commission member M Govinda Rao, Prof S Galab of CESS, former chief justice of Himachal Pradesh Justice MN Rao, former chief secretary of AP Kaki Madhava Rao, retired IAS officer, former Union home secretary K Padmanabhaiah and others.