Guntur, October 13: For the second day today, Chief Minister K Rosaiah drew heavy flak as he went around Kurnool, Guntur and Krishna districts to commiserate with the victims of flood and offer them Government assistance.
Though there was none of the hooliganism of the sort witnessed in the stone-throwing incidents in Kurnool yesterday, the protests lost none of their stridency.
The Chief Minister, who had stayed overnight in Kurnool, resumed his tour and visited parts of the town to get a first-hand account of the ravage wrought by the floods.
As soon as he set out, he was shouted down by the victims who complained that the relief being offered was woefully inadequate. At Nandyal too, he was confronted by youths insisting on a categorical assurance that relief be provided commensurate with the magnitude of the calamity. His typically cautious way of saying he would do as much as he could only fuelled their ire.
When he moved on to the floodaffected parts of Guntur, the situation was no different and at one point he lost his cool. He bluntly told one Ramanaiah, a farmer of Ravinuthala in Repalle mandal who approached him saying that he had incurred a loss of Rs 18,000: “You have to settle the issue with the owner of the land because you are not the patta holder.” Later, even as he was going about with his rote speech that the government had given 20 kgs of rice besides 5 litres of kerosene, an aged woman, fed up with his replies, asked him whether in the absence of other essentials she should use the kerosene only to set herself ablaze.
Later, at Repalle, the scenes were no different, and at length the chief minister retired to the tranquillity of his bus. But the respite was shortlived and in Avanigadda, Krishna district, he had to taste the wrath of the flood victims all over again.
–Agencies–