Heated debate between Jagan, Naidu continues in AP budget session

Heated exchanges between the ruling YSR Congress Party (YSRCP) and the main opposition Telugu Desam Party (TDP) continued on the second day of the Andhra Pradesh (AP) legislative assembly’s budget session, which began on 11 July.

The issue of implementing zero-interest loans continued from the previous day. AP chief minister Y. S. Jagan Mohan Reddy claimed that the previous TDP-led government failed to implement it fully, having paid just 5% of the amount it had to to banks.

Reddy, with the aid of a Powerpoint presentation, placed data before the house to show how the TDP, led by party supremo N. Chandrababu Naidu, had paid just Rs.630 crore to banks instead of the Rs.11,595 crore.

“It accounts for just 5%, and 95% of the farmers did not get the benefits,” the chief minister claimed, and added that the TDP has been resorting to false claims on the issue.

Naidu also explained with official documents how the scheme was implemented during his regime.

The discussion was taken up after the assembly pushed aside question hour and took up the debate on zero-interest farm loans on a suggestion by Reddy. Since the budget session began on Thursday, Reddy has been on the offensive against Naidu, questioning various works undertaken during his tenure as chief minister.

He also attacked Naidu for letting Telangana build the Kaleswaram irrigation project by diverting 3 trillion million cubic feet of water from the Godavari river.

Finance minister Buganna Rajendranath Reddy, who delivered his maiden budget speech, promised that the government will achieve special category status for AP, implement the monorail project in Visakhapatnam, provide piped water to every village and household, ensure pollution control and environment protection, etc among other things.

The finance minister also took a swipe at the previous government in his speech. “Despite the huge investments claimed to be made in the last five years by the previous government, we witness severe farm distress, lack of jobs for the youth, poor infrastructure, inadequate assistance for the poor, etc. This exhibits that the actions taken by the previous government did not address the genuine needs of the state,” Rajendranath Reddy stated.

He added that there was a glaring disconnect between the “hype and ground reality”, as AP did not grow as claimed previously. “We were told that over the past five years, the economy grew in double digits. We are still ascertaining if these growth figures are real or hypothetical,” Rajendranath Reddy added.

The AP government, he said, intends to construct 25 lakh houses under the ‘YSR Housing Scheme’ in five years starting from 2020. Rajendranath Reddy informed the house that work has begun to identify appropriate land parcels and, if required, private land also will be taken. “The previous government, in the last five years, could complete only 91,119 houses in urban areas and 7,04,916 houses in rural areas,” he said.