When YSR Congress party president and Andhra Pradesh chief minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy was addressing a massive public rally “Siddham” at Medarametla in Bapatla district on Sunday evening, everybody expected that there would be a lot of fireworks at the Bharatiya Janata Party, apart from of course, the Telugu Desam Party and the Jana Sena Party.
But Jagan, who went hammer and tongs at TDP president N Chandrababu Naidu and his “datta putrudu” (adopted son) Pawan Kalyan in his speech, surprisingly maintained utmost restraint in attacking the BJP, let alone its top leaders – Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union home minister Amit Shah.
Jagan exposed Naidu’s weakness in forging alliances with the other parties stating that he has no strength or guts to fight with the YSRCP alone.
He said while Naidu is taking the help of half a dozen parties to fight the elections, he was fighting alone like a lion.
He refrained from taking the name of the BJP which joined hands with the TDP and Jana Sena. He only mentioned about “another national party,” as a passing reference, and described it as a party that got fewer votes than NOTA.
“Chandrababu Naidu and another national party are ready to attack our poor people. The alliance consists of parties that have bifurcated AP in an unjust manner and parties that got fewer votes than NOTA!” he said.
The only time he took the name of Narendra Modi was when he was mentioning the joint manifesto released by the TDP and the BJP during 2014 elections. He said this joint manifesto had the pictures of Modi, Naidu and Pawan Kalyan.
“BJP-TDP-JSP alliance contested the 2014 elections by promising to implement farm loan waiver, Mahalaxmi scheme, 3 cents land to the poor, BC sub-plan but never implemented anything. Remember between 2014-2019 Chandrababu failed to get special category status for AP. What will he do now?” he asked.
The entire focus of Jagan was to attack Naidu for compromising his self-respect in Delhi for the sake of alliances.
“Unable to pedal his cycle alone, Chandrababu along with his foster son Pawan Kalyan went to Delhi and had to wait for days to seal an alliance. If Naidu thinks that Jagan has not fulfilled promises and delivered development then why this?” he asked.
Apparently, Jagan wants to keep his options open for continuing the good relations with the BJP national leadership. Maybe, he will change his tune, if Modi or Shah comes to Andhra Pradesh and makes any personal attack on him or his government!