The Election Commission of India’s direction to the state government to keep the village and ward volunteers’ away from the disbursement of pensions and other benefits directly to the beneficiaries has pushed the Telugu Desam Party led by N Chandrababu Naidu in a tight spot.
The EC clearly said it had taken the decision following a complaint lodged by a non-governmental organisation Citizens for Democracy and a series of reports in the local media alleging that the volunteers were acting as YSR Congress party agents.
As a result, the disbursement of pensions, which was supposed to take place on Monday, came to a grinding halt.
Naturally, the YSRCP leaders turned the tables on the TDP, accusing it of denying disbursement of pensions to the old aged people through volunteers.
YSRCP general secretary and advisor to the state government Sajjala Ramakrishna said the disbursement of pensions came to a halt due to the alleged complaint from the TDP.
“The Citizens for Democracy, headed by retired IAS officer Nimmagadda Ramesh Kumar, is a pocket organisation of working with the sole purpose of undermining the volunteer system,” he alleged.
Reddy said the elderly people, who had been getting pensions at their doorsteps every month for the last four and a half years, would now suffer due to selfish politics of Naidu.
“Naidu revealed his true colours to the public before the elections. Everyone should take note of this,” he said.
As part of the YSRC strategy, hundreds of village and ward volunteers started submitting their resignations from their posts, alleging that political motives were being attributed to them unnecessarily, though they were doing selfless service to the people.
In Machilipatnam alone, more than a 1200 ward volunteers submitted their resignations in the municipal commissioner’s office en masse, stating that they were hurt by the allegations levelled against them that they were serving the interests of the ruling party.
Apparently realising that the complaint to the EC has backfired on the TDP, Naidu suspected a conspiracy by the ruling YSRCP behind not distributing the old-age pension for them at their doorsteps. He alleged that the money meant for old people was diverted to paying the bills of the contractors.
“On the other hand, Jagan for his own political gain has been resorting to mispropaganda that the TDP is creating hurdles for pension distribution which is totally false,” the TDP chief said.
Naidu directed the party activists to go to every house and give the clarification to them on the conspiracies of the YSRCP in the pension distribution besides providing the facts before them.
Stating that the TDP stand on the volunteers is very clear, he asked the volunteers not to work in favour of the YSRCP and assured that the party will take care of their future.
"If you make any kind of mistakes at the election time there is every possibility of cases to be registered against such volunteers and thus you should be extra cautious," Naidu warned them.