The ongoing winter session of the Andhra Pradesh state assembly is witnessing heated debates on various issues.
Naturally, the ruling party having huge majority will have an upper hand over the opposition, which tries to create maximum ruckus in the House to attract the public attention.
In the process, the opposition members go to extreme lengths, while the members of the treasury benches try to bully them with their brute majority.
On Monday, when the state assembly passed as many as 16 bills, including historic bills like merger of RTC employees with the government, new excise policy, establishment of separate commissions for SCs and STs, introduction of English medium in government schools etc., the House witnessed acrimonious debate between the opposition and the ruling party.
In the process, when the Telugu Desam Party members went overboard to criticise the government, chief minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy wondered whether the opposition members were MLAs or buffoons.
He went on to say that TDP president N Chandrababu Naidu had no right to be even the leader of the opposition in the House.
Normally, such strong criticism from Jagan should have been highlighted by his own publication Sakshi Telugu daily on Tuesday. But it has conveniently ignored Jagans’ outburst and focussed on the importance of bills passed by the assembly in its banner story which read: “Yet another step towards a golden history.”
Surprisingly, both Andhra Jyothy and Eenadu carried Jagan’s “buffoon” comments as their lead stories, apart from the passage of the important bills by the assembly. Of course, they also carried Naidus’ rebuttal to Jagan’s criticism and his claim that the TDP had done much more to the SCs and STs during its regime.
Andhra Jyothy carried a separate story on the merger of RTC employees with the state government, along with Jagan’s statement describing it as a historic bill. At the same time, it also sought to raise several doubts over the implementation of the decision, said to have been raised by the RTC employees.
The suspension of senior IRS officer Jasti Krishna Kishore and filing of ACB cases against him continues to hit the headlines in Eenadu and Andhra Jyothy. While Eenadu published the report on Central Administrative Tribunal stalling his suspension, Andhra Jyothy report attacked Jagan for harassing him out of vengeance.
But the major news that has been played up prominently by all the three dailies was that of people’s anger against passage of Citizenship Amendment Act by the Centre. For Eenadu, it is a banner story and for the remaining two dailies, it was the second lead. But the headlines of Eenadu and Sakshi are the same reflecting the people’s anger.
The conviction of suspended BJP legislator in Unnao rape case in Uttar Pradesh also figured prominently in all the three major dailies.