‘Quit Jagan, Save Andhra’: Chandrababu Naidu targets arch rival with guns blazing at TDP ‘Mahanadu’

The 72-year-old former chief minister, Naidu looked charged up as he delivered the inaugural address to the two-day TDP “Mahanadu”, the party’s annual conclave, in Ongole.

Naidu said the YSRCP leaders were so “criminalised, corrupt and incorrigible” that they had no right to rule any longer. The people from all sections were rejecting the “false welfare claims” being made by CM Jagan Reddy, he alleged.

Describing his arch rival Jagan Reddy as an “inefficient leader” presiding over a “rule by maniacs, liars and hardcore corrupt criminals”, the TDP supremo alleged that in just three years his government has pushed the state into a Rs 8 lakh crore debt trap without any development and roads.

Naidu accused the CM of “selling” the Rajya Sabha nominations, charging that “one such nomination was given to a Telangana ex-TDP leader who got 12 backward castes (BCs) like Thurpu Kapu and Koppula Velama deleted from the BCs list. This leader had gone to court and put hurdles in 4 per cent reservation for minorities”.

He claimed that the people were rejecting the bus yatras that the ministers were undertaking to take “false credit” for social welfare. “The people’s non-cooperation began in the Chief Minister’s Eluru meeting itself early this month when the public left the venue despite police pleas and threats,’’ he said.

The TDP chief asserted that if Jagan Reddy would not quit politics, Andhra Pradesh would not see “happy days” again. All sections should unitedly raise the slogan, “Quit Jagan”, in order to save the state from “future destruction”.

He said his government had spent 52 per cent budget on public welfare as against the Jagan dispensation’s 41 per cent. “How can Jagan claim welfare credit when he removed Anna Canteens, Videsi Vidya, Pelli Kanuka, Sankranthi Kanuka, Ramzan Thofa, Christmas Kanuka and Chandranna Beema?” he thundered.

పండగొచ్చినట్టు ఉత్సాహం వెల్లివిరుస్తోంది. ఆ వేడుక తాలూకు కొన్ని చిత్రాలివి.(2/2)#Mahanadu2022 pic.twitter.com/UuCw1UxQ5K

— Telugu Desam Party (@JaiTDP) May 27, 2022

Naidu accused the YSRCP government of “looting” people with its own “harmful” cheap liquor brands while the sand mafia raised the cost of a tractor load of sand from Rs 600 under the TDP regime to Rs 5,000 now. There was no sand available for constructing 30 lakh houses for the poor that the CM had “falsely” promised.

He also charged that the CM was signing “fake MoUs” at Davos with the same companies that had engaged with the TDP government earlier, citing the instance of the Adani Data Centre in this regard.

Naidu alleged that an “inept” person like Jagan Reddy was “ineligible” to continue as the CM. “Is any section of the society happy with Jagan’s rule? Except unleashing vendetta, what has Jagan done for the people of Andhra Pradesh in the last three years,” he asked.

Giving the call “Quit Jagan – Save Andhra Pradesh”, he exhorted the people to vote out the “scandalous and ruinous” YSRCP regime, stressing that “all sections should work in unison and save the state from further destruction”.

“Jagan is a psychopath. All his thoughts and actions are destructive. The state has suffered heavy damage in the three years of his rule so far,” Naidu alleged.

He demanded that the government publish the facts on the state’s finances. “The CM has to answer where is all the state’s revenue going? Where are the central grants going? What about lakhs of crores of rupees borrowed by this government,” he asked.

This is the first “Mahanadu” that the TDP organised as a public function after a gap of three years. While in 2019, the conclave was not held because of the TDP’s electoral rout, the party only did its brief online sessions in 2020 and 2021 due to the Covid pandemic.

Asserting that “Mahanadu’’ was like a “big TDP festival”, Naidu said, “The party has seen many ups and downs in four decades since its inception but the kind of troubles it encountered in the last three years under the oppressive Jagan regime are unprecedented.”

He, however, asserted that the TDP workers were not going to be cowed down by the Jagan dispensation. “Not only our party workers but also everybody in the state is feeling stifled and frustrated. That should spell doom for Jagan,” he claimed.