Don’t insult GHMC voters, Lok Satta Tells Congress & TDP

The Lok Satta Party today accused both the principal traditional parties – the Congress and the TDP – of pursuing an anti democratic GHMC election campaign. While the Congress would like voters to return its candidates in all the 150 divisions, the TDP maintained a vote to any other party than it would be a wasted vote .

Talking to the media, party spokespersons Katari Srinivasa Rao and Mrs. Y. Rama Devi said both parties seemed to believe that only either of them is ordained by God to rule Hyderabad and others have no role to play. “It is nothing but an affront to voters who are endowed with abundant common sense.”

“Every party in a democracy has the right to field its candidates and seek the voters’ verdict on the basis of an agenda. Instead of approaching the electorate with a clear-cut, practicable and feasible agenda, the two main parties are focusing their attention on grabbing power at any cost.”

The Lok Satta spokespersons asserted that a mere change of players without a change in the rules of the game would not transform people’s lives. “By voting to either of the traditional parties in haste, the voters will have to regret at leisure, mutely witnessing perpetuation of corruption and bad governance.”

The Congress Party, which had failed to improve the living conditions of the people in areas ranging from drinking water and sanitation to roads and public transport, is trying to take the voters for a ride by indulging in tall talk investing thousands of crores of rupees on development works. “It is bent upon grabbing all the 150 seats so that it can have an unquestioned sway over GHMC funds and people’s lives.”

The TDP would like to avenge it dismal debacle in the 2009 general elections by coming to power at least in the GHMC, without articulating any coherent plan to improve people’s lives. “It is in no mood to recognize that people are entitled to exercise their vote as per their free will.”

The Lok Satta Party alone has come out with a crystal clear agenda to develop Hyderabad into a world-class city of which every one could be proud. If elected to power, it would devolve Rs.2 crore on every division every year from out of the GHMC funds so that elected people’s committees could utilize it for addressing people’s burning problems in the division. The party will supply safe drinking water in all colonies and bastis, which do not have the facility now with the installation of reverse osmosis plants. It will implement a citizen’s charter under which failure to attend to a public grievance in a specified period invites penalty on the GHMC. It will identify and resolve problems basti and colony-wise and implement a division agenda in three phases – 100 days, one year and five years respectively. It will integrate the functioning of the GHMC, Metrowater and Urban Development.

“We have the clarity of purpose, determination, competence and integrity to deliver on our promises,” asserted the spokespersons.

Replying to a question on the allegations against the party by a Karimnagar woman, the spokespersons accused the TDP of indulging in a mud-slinging campaign against the Lok Satta Party. "Producing a woman before the media two months after the elections to make malicious charges against the Lok Satta shows that the specter of the Lok Satta is haunting the TDP on the eve of the GHMC elections." It may be recalled that the TDP had blamed its debacle in the 2009 elections on the Lok Satta.

The spokespersons recalled that although the Lok Satta had proposed that all such issues be debated in the open before the media, the TDP backtracked for reasons even common people could make out.