BJP Floor leader in the Assembly P. Vishnu Kumar Raju on Tuesday said people should stop reading between the lines on Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu’s handshake with Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the NITI Aayog meeting at the Rashtrapati Bhavan on Sunday. “What is wrong in shaking hands with someone for courtesy sake? I am in the Opposition party in the State. But I greet Mr. Naidu with a smile whenever I visit him with an issue. Why people are making much ado about nothing?”
To a reporter’s remark that the Opposition YSR Congress Party had accused Mr. Naidu of resorting to ‘politics of deception’, he said: “The Opposition party has no other issue. I have been watching the Chief Minister’s style of functioning for the last four years and how the Centre has been extending help to the government here. I don’t see any reason why one should raise a hue and cry over their handshake.”
‘Jobs not generated’
Mr. Raju said he had come to submit a memorandum to the Chief Minister on the proposed removal of Saakshar Bharat coordinators. “There are nearly 21,000 Saakshar Bharat coordinators across the State working for the last eight years. But the Director of the Higher Education Department, through a letter, removed them from service. This is very unfortunate. The TDP which came to power on the slogan of ‘Babu osthe job osthadi (If Babu comes to power, jobs will be generated) is now depriving people of jobs,” he said. The BJP leader said the workers had not received their salaries for the last six months and appealed to the government to reinstate them.