HYDERABAD: The Telugu Desam Party has accused the State Government with launching the Integrated Development In Rural Areas And Model Municipal Areas (Indiramma) programme with an eye on the forthcoming Panchayat Raj elections.

The Government wants to repeat the exercise it undertook before the municipal elections and take people for a ride but they were not in a mood to believe them, the TDP general secretaries, K. Srihari, E. Peddi Reddy and Yousuf Ali, said at a press conference here on Tuesday.

Briefing presspersons about the meeting of the party's key office bearers from districts and the State, they said it was felt that Indiramma was essentially for getting political mileage in the elections. The identification of villages and beneficiaries were done by Congress leaders, they alleged.

Sceptical on resources

The fact that only one-third of the villages were chosen shows that the Government wants to divert funds and benefits from the remaining two-thirds of the villages to these villages. "We will explain this fraud to the people," they added.

They were also sceptical of the resources for the programme especially housing component.

In reply to questions, they said there would not be any impact of the Congress-TRS alliance on the TDP's prospects in the panchayat elections. As for its alliance with the Left parties, they said it was not discussed in today's meeting.

"The field is still wide open," they observed. They went on to defend the party's strategy in the municipal elections and did not consider it as a failure.

Power to farms

By other resolution, the meeting said the Government had miserably failed to maintain seven-hour power supply to the farm sector and by continuing the supply during night times, it had claimed the lives of 100 farmers.

Many of them were electrocuted and some died of snakebite.

Relief package

The party demanded a relief package for these farmers similar to the one given for farmers who had committed suicide.

The meeting decided to continue to highlight the irregularities and corruption in the irrigation project tenders, "gifting" away of prime Government land to private parties in cities and towns, displacement of people by projects, problems faced by sheep rearing community and poultry farmers.

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