BJP MLC Somu Veerraju has questioned Chief Minister

BJP MLC Somu Veerraju has questioned Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu’s claims on the Polavaram project.“The project has never been on Mr. Naidu’s agenda,” Mr. Veerraju told the media here on Saturday.It was not in the TDP’s election manifesto, but was part of the BJP’s, he said.

Even the demand for including the seven mandals facing submersion in Andhra Pradesh had been made by Mr. Naidu only after a team of BJP leaders met him in New Delhi and brought to his notice the problems that would arise in future if an ordinance was not issued, Mr. Veerraju claimed.

Mr. Naidu, during his nine-year-term as Chief Minister of the combined State, had never tried to take up the Polavaram project issue and, instead, successfully pursued the Tatipudi and Pushkara lift schemes, the BJP MLC said. It was only the former Chief Minister, Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy, who had launched the project, Mr. Veerraju said.Former TDP MLA Vaddi Veerabhadra Rao had undertaken a motorcycle yatra to New Delhi seeking the project, but Mr. Naidu, even when he was calling the shots during the United Front rule, did not submit the DPR despite being sought by the then Prime Minister H.D. Deve Gowda, the BJP leader alleged.

Even during the peak of the Telangana movement, a meeting had been organised in Rajamahendravaram, in which Telangana BJP president Kishen Reddy was asked to demand the Polavaram project too, Mr. Veerraju recalled. Questioning the right of the Chief Minister to review every week the national project being constructed with Central funds, the MLC demanded that Mr. Naidu take equal interest on projects taken up with State funds.

The Chief Minister, who was making a hue and cry over the few projects not given by the Centre, should explain why it took four years to launch Anna Canteens, and why unemployment allowance was not given to 10 lakh as promised, the BJP leader questioned.Stating that there was something amiss in the MNREGS works, he said, out of the 28,000 crore spent on them, a whopping 13,000 crore went into digging the soil alone.In the housing scheme, the cost per unit was increased by 2.05 lakh, imposing a total burden of 28,000 crore on the poor, Mr. Veerraju charged.

Mr. Veerraju compared the conduct of the meeting by Union Minister Nitin Gadkari in Visakhapatnam on Friday with the one conducted by Mr. Naidu, where he had kept quiet when MLA N. Balakrishna attacked the Prime Minister, or his criticism at a government meeting with Sadhikara Mitras. The BJP workers were only protesting against the absence of the Prime Minister’s photograph at the venue where the port projects were on display, he said.BJP city president M. Nagendra ridiculed Mr. Naidu claiming credit for the golden quadrilateral project.