Stop indulging in calumny, Lok Satta tells Harish Rao

The Lok Satta Party today took strong exception to TRS MLA T. Harish Rao making baseless and false allegations against its party President Dr. Jayaprakash Narayan, and counseled him against indulging in politics of hatred and division and inciting violence and anarchy.

According to media reports, Mr. Harisha Rao faulted Dr. JP for being ‘silent on the State Government ‘diverting Central funds under a drinking water scheme entirely to Coastal Andhra’ and for touring Telangana districts in the cause of farmers.

Addressing a media conference, Lok Sattta Party Working President D. V. V. S. Varma, and Secretaries V. Vijayender Reddy and P. Bhaskara Rao said that the Lok Satta Party is not in power and not privy to what goes on in the Government on a day-to-day basis to react to each and every development.

Inquiries with the concerned Minister K. Jana Reddy, however, reveal that in response to a five-year-old representation, the Union Government recently allocated funds for taking up drinking water schemes in villages affected by the salinity problem. It so happens that the salinity problem is prevalent only in Coastal Andhra. Similarly, villages in Nalgonda, Prakasam and Kurnool and their neighboring districts suffer from excess fluoride in drinking water and villages in hilly areas suffer from iodine deficiency.

The Lok Satta Party leaders recalled that although the party has only a single legislator in the Assembly, it has always been in the forefront in highlighting people’s problems and getting them resolved, irrespective of the region to which they belong.

They said that it was Dr. JP who took the lead to get the Assembly adopt a resolution unanimously for the deletion of Section 14 of the Presidential Order on recruitment of police personnel. It was Dr. JP who opposed the posting of non-locals in Hyderabad district. It was again Dr. JP who mobilized legislators in the GHMC and surrounding areas and persuaded the Chief Minister to take up the third phase of the Krishna water scheme for Hyderabad. Dr. JP had advocated that the Yellamaplli reservoir water should be utilized for irrigation and drinking water purposes in Telangana districts and not diverted to Hyderabad. The credit for getting the market yard at Siddipet in Mr. Harisha Rao’s constituency goes to Dr. JP. Earlier, cotton growers had to cart their produce to Peddapalli as the new market yard remained unopened for five years. When floods in the Krishna ravaged Mahbubnagar district, the Lok Satta adopted Kesavaram village and built a school.

The Lok Satta leaders reminded Mr. Harish Rao that under the Indian Constitution all the citizens enjoyed freedom of travel and expression. Mobilizing people is not the monopoly of anybody or the region a jagir of anybody.

The Lok Sattta leaders said that the party had been fighting for fair prices for agricultural produce for the last nine months. The Lok Satta persuaded the Union Government to permit cotton exports and as a result cotton farmers in the State received a very good price this year.

The Lok Satta Party would fight for people’s causes to the best of its ability and render them justice, they added.