TDP Leaders Spare Neither Temple Lands Nor Graveyards 

JNTU Centre, Kakinada: Today’s Padayatra proceeded along Aditya College Centre, Madhavnagar, Rangaraya Medical College and JNTU, amidst thousands of men, women and children. Supporters and well-wishers from all walks of life joined the Padayatra in large numbers.

As the Praja Sankalpa Yatra went past JNTU, staff from the varsity recalled the contribution of my father, the late Dr YS Rajasekhara Reddy. Employees from various departments of the government met me and told me how they were gripped by a sense of insecurity under the Chandrababu Naidu regime. JNTU staff complained that while many of them had put in 30 years of service, the TDP government led by Chinna Babu in this case, is now planning to hand over the work done by them to private agencies and resort to outsourcing.

Employees from Panchayat Raj department who had put in 10 years of service said that they were uncertain about their future, while employees from ITI and DLTC, who had completed 17 years of service and been appointed through the roster system, fulfilling all provisions, and were still awaiting regularisation, were similarly faced with insecurity.

Pharmacists from the health department complained that they were not being paid minimum wages. Contract employees from the electricity department had a similar tale to tell, while women nursing staff working on a contract basis in government hospitals lamented that they had not been receiving their salaries for five years. All of them had a common refrain. They did not have job security, nor were they being paid regularly. They had been turned into bonded labourers and were being cheated with false promises and assurances, they lamented. The one common thread running through their complaints was that while my father made every effort to regularise contract employees, Chandrababu Naidu did quite the opposite. He was always trying to explore ways of terminating their services.

Dalits from Ganganapalli told me that the greed for land in TDP leaders was such that they did not spare even graveyard land, which had been theirs for generations. They were fuming at the TDP leaders for not sparing even land which belonged to the dead. It is clear that in this wicked, diabolical rule of Chandrababu Naidu, temple lands and graveyard lands are the same in the eyes of TDP leaders.

Members from the fishermen community met me and complained that they did not receive the Rs.4000 given as assistance to their families, during the season of fishing holiday. They were not sure whether this amount would be given to them at all and added that last year’s compensation had not been paid to a large number of fishermen. They wondered how they could survive if they could not earn their livelihood through fishing, over these two months, and if they were denied the compensation due to them. It is indeed too much to expect Chandrababu Naidu to mitigate the troubles of fishermen, considering the fact that he threatened to ‘skin’ them when they complained earlier!

Read: God Willing, I Will Serve People As AP CM: YS Jagan

I have a question for the chief minister — your manifesto proudly proclaimed that your government would provide good governance including giving all facilities to government employees. It stated that your government would regularise the services of contract workers. Have you regularised the service of a single employee? Today, contract employees across departments are gripped by a sense of insecurity and to make matters worse, are not being paid their meagre salaries for months. How can you call this good governance? How can you be sincere about the welfare of government employees when you yourself have said that government jobs serve no purpose?