The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : On familiar ground... in a new role

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Jul 12, 2004

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

On familiar ground... in a new role

By Our Staff Reporter

The Chief Minister, Y. S. Rajasekhara Reddy, greeting people after garlanding the statue of Dr. Ambedkar at G.Kothapalli village near Dwaraka Tirumala in West Godavari district on Sunday. Photo: Raju.V

ELURU, JULY 11. It was reversal of roles for the Chief Minister, Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy. It was in summer that he undertook a gruelling `padyatra' through the drought-hit areas in West Godavari district as an opposition leader. On Sunday too it was a similar experience, the difference being he was on the Rajiv Palle Bata programme, as the Chief Minister.

What was the difference then and now? "After all, I did my duty at that time as an opposition leader and exposed the Government's indifference to the miseries of farmers through the padyatra.

Now as a Chief Minister, I am lending them a helping hand, trying to wipe their tears through this mass contact programme," Dr. Reddy told mediapersons in a field near Pothavaram, where he had his lunch earlier.

A large number of people, including women, waited to greet him on either side of the narrow roads. They heard him all through braving the sweltering heat.

Some college girls and housewives even approached him for an autograph. They found a trouble-shooter in Dr. Reddy and kept pouring in their problems that ranged from issues like house sites, financial help under self-employment scheme and old-age pensions to community problems like irrigation projects, increase of duration for power supply for agriculture and distribution of land to the landless.

It appeared that Dr. Reddy had ensured that his pet programme was a village affair in true spirit. The presence of `white shirts' was hardly felt and the officials remained out of focus unlike the Janmabhoomi programme.

Although, a battery of party MLAs, leaders and the local MP accompanied him, they hardly had any role to play during the programme.

In all the 25 villages in Ungutur and Tadepalligudem Assembly constituencies covered by him today, the Chief Minister seemed to have taken care to ensure a direct and one-to-one interaction with villagers. He preferred roadside and group meetings to arranged gatherings.

In tune with his taste, the officials organised a `rachchabanda' programme, a typical form of public discussion that takes place in villages at the centrally located places, under a tree shade at Pattempalem in Tadepalligudem Assembly segment.

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