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‘Focus on son’s rise will lead to state’s sunset’: Modi’s jibe at Andhra CM
PM Modi was addressing an interaction via video conferencing with BJP’s booth workers in Andhra Pradesh.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday hit out at Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu for building an “unholy alliance with the Congress”. He said Naidu has done so “only to promote” his son and Andhra Pradesh minister, Nara Lokesh Babu, as his political successor.
Modi’s attack on Naidu comes as the Andhra CM has emerged as a major proponent of the proposed grand alliance of Opposition parties as part of attempts to remove the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) from power at the Centre.
He called a meeting in Delhi last month, where 21 Opposition parties agreed to work together to defeat the BJP and its parent organisation, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. Naidu, who quit the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in March last year, had earlier met leaders like Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati, as part of his attempts to forge the grand alliance.
“I am sure people of Andhra Pradesh will discourage dynastic politics. You need to prepare people to deliver a mandate against Naidu’s family rule in the 2019 [national and state assembly] polls,” Modi told BJP’s booth-level workers in Andhra’s five Lok Sabha constituencies during a video conference.
Modi referred to Naidu’s father-in-law and Telugu Desam Party (TDP) founder, NT Rama Rao. He said Rao founded the TDP on an anti-Congress plank in 1982. He accused Naidu of diluting TDP’s “core values for his selfish gains”. Modi asked the BJP workers in Andhra to go to people and expose Naidu’s family rule.
Modi asked BJP workers not to yield to “threats” when BJP’s state president, Kanna Lakshminarayana, who took part in the interaction in Guntur district, complained about Naidu “coercive methods” against their leaders. Kanna told Modi that TDP activists allegedly “targeted” his house in Guntur Friday. He added Naidu allegedly threatened to “finish off” a BJP women’s wing leader during a protest at Kakinada on the same day.
TDP spokesman, G Ramakrishna Prasad, said Naidu’s comments about the woman activist were twisted out of proportion. “He said the TDP workers only staged a protest at the Kanna’s house.”
Modi asked BJP’s workers to take a leaf out of BJP Rajya Sabha member V Muraleedharan’s book to “valiantly carry forward the fight against Naidu government’s excesses”. Ruling Communist Party of India (Marxist) or CPI (M) workers allegedly attacked Muraleedharan’s house in Kerala’s Thalassery. His house was targeted hours after one of CPI (M) legislator’s residence was attacked during violence in the state on Saturday over the entry of women into Sabarimala temple.
TDP spokesperson Vara Prasad dismissed Modi’s charges. “Our party under Chandrababu Naidu’s leadership is only crusading to save the country from the Prime Minister’s dictatorship by mobilising all democratic forces. It is a democratic compulsion for our party to take the Congress on board to take forward this fight,’’ Prasad said.
Naidu had in December accused the NDA government of harassing political rivals through agencies like the CBI. He had earlier on November 8 withdrawn a consent given to the CBI to act against central government officials working under his administration’s jurisdiction.
