Southern States - Andhra Pradesh   

Cong. reiterates promise of free power to farmers

By Our Staff Reporter

VISAKHAPATNAM SEPT. 18. The State unit of the Congress has put forth an argument to counter the Telugu Desam's contention that free power cannot be supplied to farmers and its criticism that the Congress had gone back on its promise of providing free power to farm pumpsets in Punjab, by saying that supply of free power is possible.

Power could not be supplied free of cost to farmers in Punjab due to a localised problem. With cottage industries also located in the fields and power supply being common to both the machinery and the farm pumpsets, supply of free power to farmers was not viable there. The president of the APCC, D. Srinivas, said here on Thursday that this point had been explained to the party's president, Sonia Gandhi, and she was also told that a uniform policy could not be adopted for all States and each State unit be allowed to make its own decision.

In Andhra Pradesh, the Congress would keep its promise of providing free power to farmers if it is was elected to power, Mr. Srinivas said at a "Meet-the-press'' programme organised by the Vizag Journalists Forum.

He criticised the Chief Minister, N. Chandrababu Naidu, for pushing the State five years back with his policies. "He (Mr. Naidu) only gives an impression that he is working hard and that he is intelligent. He tours a lot abroad saying that he will get industries but not a single industry with foreign investment has come up in the State,'' Mr. Srinivas said.

The Government was neck-deep in scams. What moral right has the TDP Government to continue in power, he asked. The High Court's adverse comment against the continuation of a Minister facing a murder case in the Cabinet is a great insult to the self-esteem of Telugus, he observed.

The Congress is not eager to grab power. It wanted power, but only to put the State back on the rails, the PCC chief said.

The APCC president did not give much weight to the observation made by some that Mr. Naidu would not leave the "gaddi'' so easily, "because I believe that if there is unity in the party it is easy to remove him."

Asked if the Congress would be able to keep the anti-TDP vote intact, he said that efforts would be made in this direction by bringing together like-mined parties and reaffirmed that there was no truck with the Telengana Rashtra Samiti since it has only a single point agenda of demanding a separate State. He welcomed the decision of the party MLAs from delta districts to call off their hunger strike on Thursday.

Mr. Srinivas said that they had agreed to his suggestion to take up another form of agitation since going on a fast-unto-death would not serve any purpose as the Government was "blind, deaf and inhuman.'' The president of the VJF, S.S. Shiva Sankar, presided over the programme.

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