Vishakapatnam, January 24: For the first time after quitting the Congress, former Kadapa MP YS Jaganmohan Reddy has urged the people to defeat the Congress in the next general elections for better governance.
He was on ‘Jana Deeksha’ along with his supporters, including MLAs and MPs, on RK Beach Road today protesting against petrol price hike.
Addressing the huge gathering, Jagan targeted the UPA government at the Centre and the Congress government in the state besides Telugu Desam Party president Nara Chandrababu Naidu. Even though the public sector oil companies have been earning profits in crores of rupees for the past four years, the UPA government has hiked the petrol prices claiming losses to the companies, Jagan alleged.
Petrol prices in poor countries like Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal were less than that of India, which indicated that the government had deliberately hiked the prices, he charged.
The dharna would at least wake up the Centre to the need to address the issue immediately as the petro price rise would have a cascading effect on the prices of other commodities and transportation charges, he said. Amidst loud cheers, Jagan said he was praying to god to change the mindset of the Central and State governments towards the poor and middle classes.
“I am constrained to say that the central government is shameless as it does not seem to open its eyes to the woes of the poor and middle class families,” he said.
Chandrababu Naidu came to power by back-stabbing NT Ramarao.
The TDP and the NDA governments had pushed the prices of petroleum products up without showing concern for common people, he alleged.
Because of Chandrababu Naidu, the state had lost its valuable gas resources in the Krishna-Godavari basin to Gujarat.
AP had not participated in the bidding, he said.
It was Naidu who had hiked the sales tax on petrol but ironically he was protesting against the hike of petrol prices now, he criticised.
Bhoomana Karunakar Reddy, YV Subba Reddy, MPs Sabbam Hari, Mekapati Rajamohan Reddy, former minister Mareppa, MLAs G Babu Rao, Bharati, Srikanta Reddy, Aadinarayana Reddy, Kamalamma, Srinivas, Amaranatha Reddy, B Srinivasa Reddy, Balaraju, several former MLAs, MLCs, zilla parisahad chairmen besides actress Roja participated in the Diksha.
Traffic was diverted at several places near the beach road due to the Deeksha causing jams and severe inconvenience to people.
–Agencies