VIJAYAWADA : Jana Sena Party chief Pawan Kalyan on Wednesday predicted that YS Jagan Mohan Reddy will go back to jail after the elections. He was speaking in reference to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s speech in Rajasthan’s Balmar, where he said that those who do wrong should be prepared to be punished.
“Jagan, an accused in more than 30 cases, is out on bail. However, after the elections, he will be in jail and this is Modi’s guarantee,” he asserted.
The actor-politician was speaking to reporters after the party’s Lok Sabha candidate, Tangella Uday Srinivas filed his nomination. Reiterating that the elections will decide the fate of the people and the State, he said, “The JSP, TDP, and BJP have allied to assure people that law and order issues, corruption, and anarchy prevailing in the State will stop.”
On the issue of a leader of the Jana Jatiya Sena Party, named Srinivasu Tangella, contesting the Kakinada MP seat, the JSP chief said they have requested the returning officer to see to it that the JSP candidate’s name in the ballot paper appears as Tea Time Uday. The request was accepted.
Later in the day, Pawan, along with TDP supremo N Chandrababu Naidu, addressed a public meeting at Nellimarla in Vizianagaram district.
Terming Jagan a big thief, Pawan said, “The YSRC president has looted Rs 450 crore of NTR University funds, diverted `800 crore of government employees’ GPF without their knowledge and `8,000 crore of Panchayat Raj funds. Even Rs 450 crore of building and construction workers funds were not spared.” “To bring down power tariff, this fan (YSRC’s poll symbol) should be stopped,” he quipped. Stating that Jagan can be described as a psychopath and sociopath, he underscored the need to dethrone him.
Lambasting at Jagan over his government’s failure to maintain law and order in the State, the JSP chief said, “Lord Rama is worshipped by all, but under the YSRC regime, the idol of Rama in Ramateertham was beheaded. However, no action was taken. Under Jagan, over 200 Hindu temples were demolished,” he alleged. On the Bhogapuram Airport issue, the actor pointed out that Jagan, when he was the Opposition leader, wanted to cancel the project. But now, he is using it for land grabbing and minting money, he claimed.
Naidu, too, accused the YSRC of attempting to demolish Lord Rama’s idols in Ramateertham. “The police will arrest us even if we speak anything against the Chief Minister, but they took no action when idols were damaged,” he said.
Naidu questioned Jagan’s disinterest in doing any good for Nellimarla. “If I had remained in power, the works of Bhogapuram Airport would have been completed. I acquired 2,750 acres for the airport and laid the foundation stone,” added Naidu and promised to complete the international airport by 2025.
‘Ensure door delivery of pensions’
TDP supremo N Chandrababu Naidu has sought the intervention of the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) to direct the State government to distribute pensions to beneficiaries at the doorstep. Pointing out that 33 elderly citizens reportedly lost their lives because of the government forcing beneficiaries to visit the village/ward Secretariats to collect their pensions in April, Naidu wrote that the ruling party launched a vicious campaign of blaming the ECI and opposition parties to get political mileage by twisting the facts.
“In this backdrop, there is every possibility that the State government, with active connivance of officials concerned, will repeat the same scenario when the pensions will have to be disbursed on May 1. With temperatures in the State soaring beyond tolerable levels, beneficiaries will face severe hardships if they are made to wait at the secretariats to collect their pension,” the former chief minister wrote in the letter.