Minister for Panchayat Raj and Rural Development Peddireddy Ramachandra Reddy hailed the YSR Congress party’s triumph in the third phase of Panchayat elections in Kuppam constituency as a ‘landslide victory’ and dedicated it as a gift to the Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy.
The party leaders are visibly elated over bringing into their kitty more than 80% of Panchayats in the constituency considered to be the fortress of the opposition leader and former Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu.
The minister called the victory a clear indication of the voters’ acceptance of the Jagan administration.
“The opposition has been blaming the well-intended welfare schemes, creating legal hurdles for developmental projects and spreading canards that the government is pushing the state into a debt trap. Now the verdict has come as a deathblow to the opposition as it vindicates our governance”, Mr. Ramachandra Reddy told a media conference at his residence here on Thursday.
The minister flayed the opposition for twisting facts and spreading misinformation through select media platforms that the TDP supporters had won a majority of the seats.
Dubbing Mr. Naidu as a ‘perennial conspirator’, he advised him to mend his ways to wake up to the reality ‘at least now’, before his popularity slid further. He acknowledged that the tide turned in YSRC’s favour due to the unstinting efforts of the Member of Parliament (Chittoor) N. Reddeppa and Kuppam assembly constituency in-charge K. Bharat.
Demanding Mr.Naidu’s resignation on moral grounds, Mr. Reddy wondered how he had managed to win Kuppam for two decades, with dissatisfaction so rife among the voters who had ‘clearly disowned’ the TDP.
Deputy Chief Minister K. Narayanaswamy breathed fire against Mr. Naidu for resorting to negative campaign against the Jagan government by taking certain constitutional bodies into his fold. “The results clearly proved him wrong”, he pointed out. Mr. Bharat, son of retired bureaucrat Late K. Chandramouli, who had contested in vain against Mr. Naidu in Kuppam in the last general elections, attributed the victory to the ‘last mile delivery’ of the welfare schemes in the tail-end constituency.
