Date: 06.12.14 To His Excellency The Governor of Andhra Pradesh, Raj Bhavan, Hyderabad. Respected Sir, On behalf of the Congress party it is our duty to bring to your kind notice the manner in which the government headed by Shri. N Chandrababu Naidu is letting down and systematically deceiving the people. It gives us no great pleasure to knock your door. But we are constrained and compelled to do so given the highly anguishing situation the state is sliding into. We are herewith, enclosing a copy of the TDP manifesto so that you could realise the yawning gap between what was promised and the reality today. Six months earlier on 8 June you flew to Mangalagiri to administer the oath of office and secrecy to Shri Naidu and his council of ministers. In that ostentatious event you witnessed Shri Naidu signing five files to give effect to his key election promises. It will be exactly six months this coming Monday since that event. Those five signatures deal with waiver of farm loans, waiver of DWCRA groups’ loans, removal of belt shops selling liquor, hike in old age and widow pensions and raising retirement age from 58 to 60 years. Only the last has been implemented and the rest continue to hang fire. Sir, to underline the extent of deception it is incumbent upon us to inform you that Shri. Naidu stripped the TDP manifesto off from their official website, telugudesam.org within days of being sworn-in. When we browsed the Website we were shocked that the TDP election advertisements relating to loan waiver and women’s self help groups too were not there. There are only five advertisements left and none of them deal with the TDP’s key pre-poll promises. Nothing can be more eloquent than this to understand the duplicity of the head of government. We would now list the failures of this TDP government and we are sure that you would understand why this government should not be prosecuted for cheating. LOAN WAIVER FOR FARMERS In page 12 of the TDP election manifesto it said that soon after they come to power the first file he would sign is the waiver of farm loans. On June 8 in your presence he signed a file, which in reality did not waive any loan. On the contrary that file was a delay tactic and importantly to reduce the number of beneficiaries. As part of this he set up the Kotaiah Committee to go into the issues involving these loan waivers. In fact in the TDP manifesto and during the TDP campaign he said that they would waive the loans unconditionally. The farmers actually believed that the loans would be waived immediately after the TDP comes to power. The reason for this is the farmer recalled that when the Congress stormed to power in 2004, the first file that was signed was the implementation of free power with immediate effect. The famer truly thought that the TDP would replicate that effort but is finding himself duped. As of now families who pledged gold for bank loans could not pay them back and the banks have auctioned away the gold at their disposal as the farmer’s family has technically defaulted. The fact is the farmer has lost his hard earned valuables because the TDP government defaulted. On December 4, he finally announced the ‘Debt Redemption Scheme’, which is basically a heavy-duty dilution of the promise by reducing the number of farm loans that need to be serviced. The terms and conditions that the government has incorporated in the scheme clearly indicate that the scheme is going to be curtailed and any waiver then would be too meagre to be labelled as support or help. LOAN WAIVER FOR DWCRA GROUPS In page 16 of the TDP manifesto they promised to waive DWCRA loans in to-to. Instead of waiving them, The latest statement of the chief minister is that each member of the group would get just Rs 10,000. This is not yet a policy decision. As a result of the government not repaying their loans the banks have forfeited the women’s hard earned savings from the thrift groups. We wish to recall that the Election Commission of India asked how Shri Naidu would fulfil the promise to waive farm loans and waiver of loans to women’s self help groups as they involve colossal amounts. He then gave a five-page written undertaking that he has the experience to fulfil those promises. The resulting impact was that the farmers and DWACRA womens did not repay the loans, the government failed to help the farmer or the DWCRA woman and because of that they became ineligible for fresh loans. They are now to service their old loans with due bank interest. DROUGHT In August 2014 the IMD alerted that Andhra Pradesh is headed for a severe drought. Later the IMD said 11 of the 13 districts are reeling under drought and specified that it’s intense in an overwhelming 500 mandals. Shri Naidu at a Press conference on 04.12.2014 said that the state received 37 per cent less rainfall. Yet even as this year is coming to an end the government is yet to declare mandals affected by drought. Even the preliminary work of asking the Centre to send a team to the drought-hit areas or even a more basic thing of organising drinking water and fodder for cattle was not done. It is heart burning to see that villagers are migrating to eke out their livelihood. To avoid this kind of a situation the Congress-led government at the Centre implemented the MGNREG. This has been diluted by the BJP government. The farm labours are now robbed of an opportunity to work in their areas and are left with no option but migrate. We are absolutely perplexed on why the government did not find it necessary to call for an all-party meeting on this extreme issue despite our repeated requests. FARMERS SUICIDES In these six months the spectre of farmers’ suicides has become an alarming reality bringing back memories of the 1996-2004 situation when Shri Naidu was in power. So far at least 115 farmers have committed suicide and half of them, 58 are from Anantapur district alone. The reasons for this are not hard to find as its open knowledge that the farmer takes this extreme step when he is facing severe financial distress. The promised loan waiver just remains on paper and the drought is adding to the farmers’ sorrow. So far the government has not uttered a single word to give confidence to the farmer. And this government has kept aside the Congress government’s policy of extending Rs 1.5 lakh ex-gratia to the family of a farmer who committed suicide. INSURANCE AND INPUT SUBSIDY When it comes to crop insurance and input subsidy it is a case of criminal negligence by the TDP government. The farmers ought to have received Rs 840 cr as crop insurance and input subsidy, according to the TDP manifesto, Rs 3,000 cr for the year 2013-14 crop loss. It is cruel irony that at a time like this the TDP leadership is going all out to provide insurance policies to the TDP workers. HUDHUD CALAMITY It is nearly two months that HudHud battered Visakhapatnam, which this government is projecting as a jewel in its crown. It is stupefying to say the least that there is no transparency in the basic enumeration, as the victims’ lists was not presented in the Gram Sabhas. 64 people were killed in that cyclone. The state government and the Central government promised Rs 5 lakh and Rs 2 lakh ex-gratia respectively to the families. The Centre’s amount is yet to reach the families. Further those who lost their houses or whose houses suffered damage, loss of crops and horticulture trees got no relief. The total damage is at Rs 21,000 cr. Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi announced just Rs 1,000 cr as relief when he visited Visakhapatnam. The state received a mere Rs 400 cr. And the state government is yet to make any kind of effort to get the remaining amount, let aside a comprehensive enhanced amount for the people whose lives are yet to find normalcy. In the midst of this disaster ruling party MLAs and TDP leaders have stooped to line their pockets. They have given letters to fair price shop dealers to provide kerosene and 25 kilos of rice and other commodities to the victims, as they did not have ration cards. Over 2 lakh such letters were given. We were shocked to discover that neither kerosene nor rice reached those affected. In turn the amounts found their way into the accounts of those MLAs and TDP leaders. Now that these 2 lakh letters were given, we demand that those applicants be immediately given fresh ration cards. We are enclosing some of the letters from TDP leaders in this regard. PRICE RISE AND PUBLIC DISTRIBUTION SYSTEM The PDS system of Andhra Pradesh is widely regarded as the best in the country for its ability to reach those in need and further being tenacious enough to protect the beneficiaries from the vagaries of price rise. This system has begun to suffer damage due to the dubious nature of this government. The Congress government introduced ‘Amma Hastam’ where nine essential items were given to white card holders for Rs 185 every month. The TDP government has scrapped this scheme and has limited itself to providing rice, sugar and kerosene. Other items like palmolein, dal, tamarind, etc are no longer part of the system. This being so, you are aware, the prices of essential commodities are higher than ever. The housewife is suffering a double blow where the PDS is diluted on one hand and on the other the food prices are becoming increasingly unaffordable. Meanwhile in the name of weeding out bogus cards nearly a quarter of the white cards have lost their validity. The weeding of cards was not done scientifically which is evident with the government scrapping or reducing rice as many as 23 lakh ration cards in one go. The ground reality, most unfortunately, is lost on this government and we are worried about the fate of households if this kind of indifference continues. There is no one else but you to whom we can tell that those targeted in the name of bogus cards are Congress workers and those not associated with the ruling party. CUT IN PENSIONS When the Congress lost power there were 43 lakh pensions in the 13 districts of the successor state of Andhra Pradesh. Even then there are several lakhs of applications pending from eligible persons under old age, widow and physically challenged pensions. Soon after the TDP came to power it did increase the pensions from Rs 200 to Rs 1,000 for old age and widows and Rs 500 to Rs 1,250 to Rs 1,500 for physically challenged persons. It would have cost the government Rs 3,730 cr to pay these amounts to the 43 lakh pensioners. But in the Budget they earmarked only Rs 1,383 cr. Right away they have cut off Rs 2,400 cr and there is no word on how the government would raise this money to pay those who are dependent on these amounts. The chief minister and his finance minister openly said they have removed 12 lakh pensions as they found the beneficiaries bogus. We demand to know how and why they have been declared as bogus beneficiaries. In the meanwhile the government has created scrutiny committees with TDP leaders, who viciously removed eligible pensioners who are aligned with the Congress and other Opposition parties. We beg you to pay attention to this outright fascist attitude of this government, which is made manifest in the first six months itself. Dubbakunta Rosamma is an iconic figure in AP for spearheading the anti-arrack movement in the early 1990s. Her pension was scrapped. When the Congress party and the media strongly protested, her pension was restored. Meanwhile the government said they would distribute pensions in the recent Janmabhoomi. Anxious that might lose out, several aged persons walked for kilometres to be personally available at the Janmabhoomi meeting. Unable to bear the strain at least 10 old persons died while trying to reach those meetings. LACK OF EMPLOYMENT The TDP’s campaign slogan was ‘Jabu kaavalante Babu raavali’ (If you needs jobs, Babu should come to power). Now the slogan seems to have perversely morphed into, ‘Babu vaacharu, Jobu poindi’ (Babu has come and jobs have gone). Sir, you would be shocked that he has removed 1 lakh jobs in these six months alone. This is despite the fact that in page six of the TDP election manifesto he promised one job to every family, encouragement of manufacturing, services and IT sector and Rs 1,000 to Rs 2,000 as unemployment dole to those who do not get jobs. Let alone the fact that the government has to begin enumeration, the fact that this would not fructify is open in the Budget where not a rupee has been allotted for this. After coming to power he removed Adarsh farmers, field assistants, outsourcing employees, mid-day meal employees, fair price shop dealers, anganwadi workers, etc. Many of those who lost their livelihood in this process were targeted because they stood identified with the Congress party. Animators of self help groups have not been paid salaries for six months and we strongly suspect that the government is out to remove them from service. NEGLIGENCE OF SCs, STs AND MINORITIES Sir, this is a feature that hurts us the most. In every Cabinet starting from the state’s formation in 1956 there always has been a representative from the STs and the minorities. The AP Cabinet today has the dubious distinction of not having a single ST or a single minority as minister. On the other hand we have Mr Narayana in the Cabinet. Because he is a close associate of Shri Naidu he was made MLC to facilitate his entry into the Cabinet. We are aware that a member of the Cabinet owes has position only due to the confidence he or she enjoys in the eyes of the chief minister. Having said that, we ought to bring to your notice that Shri B Prasada Rao was the Director General Police of integrated Andhra Pradesh. He is a Dalit officer, with impeccable track record and academic credentials. Shri Naidu removed him and appointed Shri JV Ramudu. He relaxed the rules so that Shri Ramudu, who was to retire in July 2014, got a two-year extension. This apart, Shri Naidu has appointed eight advisors, none of whom belong to the minorities or Dalits or Girijans. Further there is no representative from these sections in the Committee for a new capital. It would not be out of place to mention that he did not deem fit to take along any weaker section ministers along with him for his Singapore and Japan visits. The Congress government made a law for the implementation of the SC-ST sub plan. The government negligence of this important delivery mechanism is clear that it is yet to frame rules for its implementation. In 2013-2014 the Congress government extended loans for Dalits self-employment through the SC Corporation. Those eligible for loans were selected and this government cancelled them on the pretext that they belong to the Congress party. UNETHICAL POLITICS We would be behaving inappropriately with you if we detail the unethical manner in which Shri Naidu built his political career. The fact is throwing ethics and propriety into the gutter is second nature to him. In the run-up to the elections, he began the policy of ‘no-morals and no-principles’ by roping in leaders from other political parties, who have a depraved background. Immediately after coming to power he brazenly went about encouraging defections from Opposition parties to the ruling TDP and this has been going on for a Member of Parliament down to the ward member of a Gram Panchayat. The TDP shamelessly encouraged Congress MLCs to cross the floor. ‘ The negative manner in which he is influencing them is by withdrawing gunmen of Opposition parties leaders, foisting several false cases against them and promising them power and pelf. The Congress government used to function on the premise of threat perception to any political party leader. The factor of threat perception was defined by a committee, which exclusively dealt with the issue of safety and security of each leader. Now we find that even a ward level TDP leader has an armed personal security officer at his disposal. Ten days ago at Vijayawada at the extended TDP state executive he is on record telling them that leaders from other parties would be joining the TDP and asked TDP leaders not to raise any objection to that. At the first Collectors’ conference in Vijayawada he openly told the officers to listen and implement and decisions taken by district level TDP leaders. This is the first time ever that a CM has made this kind or a remark in public. We are pained that democracy is sliding from the sublime to the ridiculous. CHANGING NAMES OF GOVERNMENT SCHEMES When the Congress was in power we strictly abided with the policy of naming only new schemes. Never did we rename an existing scheme, which was established by the party, which preceded us in government. We wonder what the TDP has achieved by renaming Rajiv Arogyasri, which is the first of its kind mass health insurance scheme in the world. Or for that matter how has the TDP gained by renaming the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport? Rajiv Gandhi and Indira Gandhi, who have laid down their lives for the country, are highly respected and much loved leaders. CORRUPTION Corruption at the grass roots, to the minister’s chambers, their kith and kin and right to the chief minister’s office is as if there is no tomorrow. 1 - Polavaram multi-purpose irrigation project is the most prestigious project in the bifurcated state. The contractor of the project was paid Rs 84 cr as mobilisation advance. When we applied under Right to Information Act we were shocked to find files saying that the contractor was not eligible to be paid mobilisation advance. Yet the company received the money on the orders of the government, which relaxed the rules. This money was used in the recently held Nandigama by-election, which shows that large amounts of monies did indeed change hands. We are herewith enclosing the RTI documents provided by the government for your kind perusal. 2 - The sand mafia has assumed frightening proportions and the mining mafia in Rayalaseema might put earlier mining scandals to shade. Mining of sand was given to women’s self help groups, but because they lack the expertise, TDP leaders are exploiting and looting the public wealth. The situation today is that a common man has to struggle to get sand to construct his house. Six months ago a tractor load of sand cost Rs 2,000. Today the same is available for not less than Rs 10,000. The unnatural escalation is directly landing into the pockets of TDP leaders. Similarly cement prices are rising to benefit cement companies and there by siphoning to the pockets of TDP heads. In the ten years of Congress rule a bag cement cost was Rs 150 in 2004 and Rs 200 in 2014. In the six months the same bag of cement is costing Rs 300. 3 - The ministers instead of implementing policy decisions are now totally involved in the transfer of officials. Amounts ranging from Rs 5,000 to crores of rupees are involved in the transfers of officials at various levels. The Congress established a policy of counselling for transfers, which has been now thrown in the dustbin. Two ministers, Shri G Srinivasa Rao and Shri Ayyanna Patrudu, whose divergent views on the transfer of a RDO was widely covered in the media. This shows that the administrative system is becoming shaky. 4 - Businessmen-politicians having conflict of interest are working and involving themselves in everything ranging from capital construction to transfers. They are Union minister Mr YS Chowdhury, MP CM Ramesh, Minister P Narayana and Mr Kambhampati Rammohan Rao. They have ulterior motives and are playing a role in reducing this government into a brokers’ rule. The naming of the capital location and the timing of the naming saw hundreds of crores of rupees change hands. First they said it would be Vijayawada, later Guntur, later Mangalagiri and now Thullur. Once real estate prices begin to saturate at one place, they started naming another place and as a result land prices have reached ridiculous proportions. This poses a clear and present threat to the law and order situation and the affordability of the common man to own a house or a flat. The government is going take away precious farmlands that yield three crops a year. The government says it requires one lakh acres for a capital, but the fact is 1,000 acres is sufficient to house a capital. Even senior TDP leaders agree with this. The immediate potential is in real estate and is keen to see that he and his aides benefit from the development of real estate in the name of capital development. It seems to us that it is for this purpose he visited Singapore and Japan in the name of attracting investments. Shri Naidu has prioritised this given his business-like approach to governance. In the process he is neglecting more pressing issues, which we have detailed earlier in this letter. Last month the Cabinet passed a draft bill, the AP Capital Region Development Act Bill. In one of the clauses it makes it explicitly clear that the government would have the powers not just to purchase and acquire the lands for the development of the capital but also to sell. The government has given itself sweeping powers to sell those acquired lands and we therefore accuse the government of indulging in real estate brokerage rather than keeping the common man’s interests paramount. As head of the state we request you to kindly peruse the above acts and book Shri Naidu, his ministers and his associates under the relevant provisions of the Indian Constitution or any appropriate law that you deem necessary. We are sure you would appreciate that the functioning of this government is far remote from reality. This government’s main purpose is, no longer the people whose destinies are intertwined with the government’s decisions, but the benefit of those in power. We are deeply aware that you are a keen protector of public interest and public money. Therefore on this loot of the taxpayer’s money we urge you to act swiftly and comprehensively. Therefore we request you to kindly: 1 – Call for information on the above facts from the Chief Minister under Article 167(B) of the Indian Constitution. 2 – Direct the state government to implement the poll promises mentioned in the manifesto in full in letter and in spirit. 3 – The five signatures done in your presence on 8 June near Mangalagiri, were primarily waivers of loans to farmers and DWCRA women, removal of belt shops and pensions to all those eligible. We request you to verify the nature and extent of their implementation. 4 – Ensure reinstatement of all those who lost their jobs in these six months. 5 – Direct the government the furnish details of the drought situation and impact of the HudHud cyclone and the nature of relief being extended in those affected areas. 6 – Ensure that social justice is done without discrimination of any section particularly keeping the interests of Dalits, Girijans and minorities. 7 – Refer the matter of non-implementation of the TDP manifesto to the Election Commission of India and whether the TDP can be de-recognised as a political party. 8 – Call for proposals for legislation of any Act proposed by the state government for formation of the new capital before it is tabled in the AP Assembly under Article 167(b) of the Constitution. It is pertinent to bring to your attention that the government wants to table the AP Capital Regional Development Bill in the winter session of the Assembly likely to be started in this month. 9 – Direct the Chief Minister and the Council of ministers not to indulge in personal business or involve in policy making for their or their family members’ economic benefit. 10 – Call for information from chief secretary, DGP and Home Secretary about the illegal activities and business interests of the Chief Minister, Ministers and TDP leaders and their family members. 11 – Direct the chief secretary and DGP to send reports on the above said facts and direct them to initiate criminal proceedings against those in government. Thanking you, Yours sincerely, DR N. RAGHUVEERA REDDY President, Andhra Pradesh Congress Committee.
Posted on: Sat, 06 Dec 2014 04:54:51 +0000
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