The last-minute decision of YSR Congress party president and Andhra Pradesh chief minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy not to attend the launch of new car of Kia Motors at Penukonda on Thursday has raised many eyebrows.
In fact, the Kia Motors car launch programme had been kept pending for quite some time only because the company authorities were waiting for the appointment of the chief minister.
And during the recent visit to Amaravati, Kia Motors managing director Kook Hyun Shim and Chief Administrative Officer Thomas Kim personally invited the chief minister for the launch event. They also handed over a model of Seltos car to Jagan.
Jagan has accepted the invitation and official itinerary was prepared by the authorities. He was to launch the car at Anantapur before going to Kadapa to participate in various programmes.
Even till Wednesday evening, the CMO authorities were making preparations for Jagan’s visit to Kia and even kept the official press release ready.
But suddenly, Jagan decided to stay back in New Delhi and cancelled his scheduled tour to Anantapur and Kadapa.
Official sources say Jagan had cancelled his visit to Kia, because he had some engagements in Delhi. But he returned to Amaravati by 11.30 am itself; and so, he had ample time to fly down to Anantapur to launch the car.
There was a criticism in a section of social media that Jagan had not evinced interest in launching the car at the Penukonda plant, as he did not want to give any credit to his predecessor N Chandrababu Naidu, who was instrumental in bringing the car plant to AP. If he goes there, he would have to talk about Naidu.
However, sources said Jagan cancelled the Kia plant visit only because he was very much worried about worsening flood situation in north coastal Andhra and Konaseema. So, he wanted to make an aerial visit to flood-hit areas.
“He thought it would bring him a bad name if he went ahead with car launch ignoring the plight of flood-hit people,” a sources said.
Though the Jagan government wanted Kia Motors to defer the launch date to some other day, the company authorities expressed helplessness, they had given delivery commitment to the dealers and customers. Hence, they went ahead with car launch, sources said.