The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Hyderabad News : ‘I was treated shabbily by Naidu’

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Monday, Apr 07, 2008
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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

‘I was treated shabbily by Naidu’

Special Correspondent

Deputy Speaker accuses TDP of deflecting the ‘Assembly episode’

I’m not one to play caste card and gain sympathy
TDP says she was being used as a pawn by Congress

HYDERABAD: The incident involving alleged controversial remarks by TDP president N. Chandrababu Naidu against Deputy Speaker G. Kutuhalamma in the Assembly on April 2 continued to rage on Sunday.

Four days after the ‘unsavoury’ incident, Ms. Kutuhalamma addressed a press conference to express anguish at the manner in which ‘TDP is trying to deflect the issue and blame Legislative Affairs Minister K. Rosaiah’.

Circulating a detailed, eight-page note on the sequence of events, she regretted that instead of feeling sorry, TDP was trying to blame the ruling party. She objected to the Opposition’s bid to circulate CDs of the televised proceedings.

“Why are they hiding the fact that TDP members used foul language on me when the House was adjourned amid din ? Two women TDP members behaved in a high-handed manner towards me,” she lamented.

Dr. Kutuhalamma said she was forced to speak to the media only to set the record straight. “Whenever I occupied the Speaker’s chair, TDP members have passed remarks,” she alleged, wondering if the main Opposition had any respect for a woman member in the high seat.

Asserting that she was not ready to play the caste card and gain sympathy, she bemoaned that an educated person like her was treated shabbily by Mr. Naidu. She recalled how the TDP chief and others not only ensured her election as Zilla Parishad chairperson, Chittoor in the past but also her removal.

She found fault with the TDP for saying it would support her as Speaker. “Their remarks only prove that they do not want me as the Deputy Speaker,” she observed.

TDP reaction

In a quick response to Ms. Kutuhalamma’s criticism TDP leaders urged her ‘not to become a pawn in political high drama engineered by senior Congress leaders’.

At a press conference, MP Manda Jagannadham, MLA G. Sayanna and former Minister J.R. Pushparaj said it was a clear political drama that was being played by the Congress leaders against their own colleague. “Even now she is disappointed at not being made a Minister. If they were so concerned about her, why was she not made Speaker, with all her seniority ?”, they asked.

TDP SC Cell president Varla Ramaiah said the fact that it took over 15 minutes and speeches by three Congress members including Agriculture Minister N. Raghuveera Reddy, before pandemonium broke out on April 2, was proof that it was ‘orchestrated’.

Mr. Raghuveera Reddy was asked 26 times by the Deputy Speaker to close, but he did not, Mr. Ramaiah said.

Former MLA M. Narasimhulu said the Congress could see that the tapes of Assembly proceedings were broadcast far and wide in the State for people to see the truth.

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