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Andhra Pradesh : TDP bid for damage control |
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Andhra Pradesh has been one of the most important states for the BJP as the ruling Telugu Desam Party (TDP) here has been its staunchest allies. Now with four out of the five exit polls giving the Congress-TRS alliance an edge over the BJP-TDP alliance in the state, the TDP is trying its best to contain possible damage in the remaining areas - 21 Parliament and 147 Assembly seats -that go to the polls on April 26. TDP leaders and cadres have now started playing on the latent fears of the people of coastal Andhra and are holding forth on the so-called ‘dangers’ of bifurcating the state to create a separate Telangana.
“The granary (coastal Andhra) will become desert,” “you will be ruined,” and “settlers will be evicted from Telangana” are just some of the sinister scenarios TDP activists are painting to kindle suspicion about the Congress-TRS combine. TDP activists are also telling the people of coastal Andhra that the Congress-TRS combine would stop water from Nagarjunasagar and other dams which are located in Telangana. This, the TDP says, will kill the prosperous coastal region, known for its agriculture, pisciculture and poultry industry.
The Congress has retaliated and has called the new TDP pitch a deceitful ploy to win votes. “We have told our workers to propagate that there were Congress governments in the state in the past too and they never discriminated against coastal Andhra in terms of water. Besides, the TDP government has mismanaged water resources so badly in nine years that disaster is looming in the horizon,” the Congress said.
While the Congress is focussing its campaign on the plight of farmers, the neglect of agriculture, irrigation and rural employment sectors and power tariff hikes, the ruling party is highlighting achievements of its government in the last nine years and contrasting it with the “era of political instability and scams” in the previous Congress regimes.
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