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Opposition challenges TDP government to resign

The main opposition Congress in the Andhra Pradesh assembly today challenged Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu to dissolve the state assembly and seek a fresh mandate, alleging the law and order situation had deteriorated and corruption was rampant in the state.

Participating in a debate on the motion of thanks for the governor's address, Congress leader P Janardhana Reddy said all 26 Congress members of the house were willing to resign their membership and face fresh elections, and asked if Naidu was also prepared for one.

Reddy said the state government's much-publicised 'Janmabhoomi' self-help programme was ridden with corruption and that Telugu Desam Party activists were being awarded work under the programme at higher rates.

He said if the Congress came back to power in the state, it would order an inquiry into the programme's implementation and cancel the scheme. He alleged the law and order situation had worsened, with rapes and murders becoming the order of the day. He cited the case of the murder of a former legislator in the Jubilee Hills area where the chief minister's residence is located and said the state had the dubious reputation of recording the most lockup deaths.

Reddy further alleged that large kickbacks were involved in the award of power projects to private parties and demanded that the eight short gestation power projects awarded to private companies should be cancelled since the officials concerned had allegedly taken bribes.

He said the government was privatising the State Electricity Board in the name of restructuring it and that the cost would ultimately burden the consumers. The argument grew heated, with both TDP and Congress members trading charges.

P Nageswar Rao of the Communist Party of India said attacks on minorities had increased after the BJP had come to power at the Centre with support from the TDP. The chief minister replied that the TDP was committed to the welfare and protection of minorities and that there was no question of compromising on communal harmony.

He said the TDP was not only the first party to condemn the recent attacks on minorities in different parts of the country but that it had also demanded that the National Development Council be convened. The NDC is scheduled to meet in Delhi tomorrow.

Naidu said he would speak to all the chief ministers at the meeting on the urgent need to protect the minorities and to take stern action against those indulging in the attacks.

Naidu said the TDP had no option but to support the BJP at the Centre in keeping with its basic principle of opposing the Congress which he charged was unreliable. He said it had pulled down past governments headed by Charan Singh, Chandra Shekhar and H D Devegowda earlier.

G Venkata Reddy of the Congress accused Naidu of double standards, alleging the chief minister had kept quiet when the Centre invoked article 356 of the Constitution in Bihar. The chief minister replied that it it was the Congress that had indulged in double-speak, adding that minorities were also being attacked in Orissa, a Congress-ruled state.

Nageswara Rao criticised the government move to close down public sector undertakings and said accepting World Bank conditions to secure loans was not in the best interest of the state. He charged that computerisation and other schemes undertaken by the government would not help the peasant or the factory hand, but only the rich.

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