VIJAYAWADA: TDP general secretary and Information Technology Minister Nara Lokesh has asked his critics to produce evidence as to where and when he had done a mistake. He asked people not to make baseless allegations.While addressing TDP’s ‘Nammaka Droham Kutra Rajakeeyala Pai Dharma Poratam’ organised in Tirupati on Monday, Lokesh said that he is 34 years old at present and desires to be in politics for four more decades.
“I don’t know if I earn name and fame like my grandfather NT Rama Rao and father N Chandrababu Naidu, but one thing I can assure you that I will not bring a bad name to them,’’ Lokesh asserted.
The IT Minister exuded confidence that the TDP will win all the 25 Lok Sabha segments in Andhra Pradesh with a huge margin in the 2019 elections and emerge kingmaker in the national politics.
He said that the TDP owns up the responsibility to get Special Category Status to the State and see to the implementation of 18 issues that were mentioned in the AP Reorganisation Act as well as the assurances given by the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
Alleging that the BJP did injustice by denying SCS to Andhra Pradesh, he said that instead of helping the State, the BJP is playing cheap politics.The BJP is colluding with YSRC chief YS Jaganmohan Reddy, who goes to the CBI court every Friday in connection with corruption cases.
Lashing out at the saffron party’s ‘divide and rule’ policy, Lokesh said once the TDP came out of the NDA, the BJP resorted to creating regional differences in the State.“They came out with the Rayalaseema declaration claiming injustice to the drought-prone region. Fact is that Anantapur district is seeing greenery again with the government facilitating adequate irrigation water to the region,” he said.
The BJP does not have any strength in AP and cannot even win a sarpanch seat, he added.
Actor-turned-politician and Hindupur MLA Nandamuri Balakrishna said that the BJP is resorting to politics of betrayal and conspiracy at a time when Chandrababu Naidu sat on a fast at the age of 68 years to fight for the rights of people.
“The meeting has been aptly named ‘Nammaka Droham Kutra Rajakeeyala Pai Dharma Poratam’. The meaning of my speech in Hindi during the Dharma Porata Deeksha was the same,” he said.
Interestingly, Balakrishna was not in an attacking mode and did not make any controversial
‘comments’ like he did in Vijayawada. He said Special Category Status is about self-respect of Telugu people and like NT Rama Rao, the State government would make all efforts to protect it.