The Hindu : TDP ridicules Sonia's campaign style

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Mar 12, 2004

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

TDP ridicules Sonia's campaign style

By Our Special Correspondent

HYDERABAD, MARCH 11. The Telugu Desam Party has accused the Congress of misleading people of the State on its promise of supplying free power to farmers as the AICC president, Sonia Gandhi, had not uttered a word on the issue during her ongoing tour of Andhra Pradesh.

Addressing a press conference here today, the TDP Politburo member, K. Yerran Naidu, claimed that Ms. Gandhi had exposed her lack of knowledge about the State by stating that the TDP Government had hiked power tariff seven times. The truth was that the Congress had raised the rates three times and the TDP four times in the last 15 years.

Mr. Naidu claimed that domestic power tariff in AP was the lowest in the country and agricultural power tariff the second lowest.

Ridiculing Ms. Sonia Gandhi's new campaign style, he said her road shows had become possible because of the network of roads built by the Government. He held that the Congress president had scored a self-goal be describing the NDA Government at the Centre as "corrupt and scam-ridden" because the party headed by her was known as the fountainhead of corruption.

Mr. Yerran Naidu said Ms. Gandhi had shed crocodile tears for Anantapur farmers considering that her party never raised in Parliament the issue of severe drought in the district. She was blaming the TDP Government for not supplying water from the Tungabhadra high-level canal, ignoring the fact the Congress Government in Karnataka was responsible for the farmers'plight.

The Congress leader had also made no mention of the suicide by farmers in Karnataka, including in Mandya district from where the Chief Minister, S. M. Krishna, was elected. It was the Congress Government that had placed a huge burden on farmers by accepting the WTO agreement without consulting any of the States.

He said the NDA Government had reduced the interest rates on loans to farmers to 9 per cent, the lowest ever in history. The TDP would now press the NDA to include in its common minimum agenda its demand for cutting the interest rate to 4 per cent, he added.

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Andhra Pradesh