Andhra Pradesh - Visakhapatnam   

NJR doles out promises to fishermen

By Our Staff Reporter

VISAKHAPATNAM, APRIL 15. The former Chief Minister and Congress candidate for Visakhapatnam Parliamentary Constituency, N. Janardhana Reddy, on Thursday announced that the Congress would include the fishermen community in the ST list, if voted to power.

Presiding over the party election meeting at the Port Stadium here, he recalled that the Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, had failed to give any specific assurance on the demand but "the Congress is committed on the issue". He alleged that farmers in the State, especially those in north coastal Andhra, were being given a step-motherly treatment by the Centre in contrast to their counterparts in States like Punjab. Mr. Reddy said that during his three election tours of north Andhra, Mr. Naidu had only asked the people to defeat Janardhana Reddy which was an indication of his `Janardhana Reddy phobia'.

He noted that 75 lakh graduates and post-graduates in the State had applied for Railway gangmen posts, which indicated the rampant unemployment problem. He recalled how Indira Gandhi had implemented various schemes for providing jobs.

The Rajya Sabha member and film director, Dasari Narayana Rao, said that the BJP and the TDP were raking up the foreign origin issue of Sonia Gandhi as they had no other achievements to claim. He described the Congress as a "maha vruksham" which cannot be uprooted even by a "hurricane''. The Congress candidate for Visakhapatnam-I, Dronamraju Satyanarayana, said, "The cycle of NTR was different from the one Chandrababu Naidu is at present riding. It is deflated.'' He alleged that the Chief Minister had deceived women in the name of DWCRA and the people in the name of `Swarna Andhra Pradesh'.

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