CM mounts direct attack on Jagan

The Chief Minister, Mr K. Rosaiah, has expressed anger at the constant criticism of the state government by the Sakshi newspaper owned by Kadapa MP, Mr Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy, signalling that the rift between them has widened.

In a review meeting held on Wednesday, Mr Rosaiah wondered loudly why the newspaper was always accusing his administration of being dysfunctional and of not implementing the pet schemes of Jagan’s father YSR, despite getting so many government advertisements.

He also added that the ministers and MLAs seemed to be insensitive to criticism against him but took care to visit Jagan whenever he was in town.

At this point, one Cabinet colleague told Mr Rosaiah that ministers would refute the allegations in case he directed them to do so. Mr Rosaiah was provoked and asked his office attendant to bring a copy of Sakshi newspaper and showed the ministers a front page report on how the government was harassing genuine ration card holders in the guise of weeding out bogus cards.

“You ministers and MLAs regularly go and meet him and next day such stories appear,” Mr Rosaiah reportedly said. “What message does that give?”

Two ministers then intervened and justified Sakshi by saying that newspapers had to print such stuff to keep up circulation. “Is it for this that we (the government) give more advertisements to that paper?” asked the Chief Minister. Meanwhile, Sakshi continued its tirade against the state government by publishing a report on how YSR’s dream scheme Pavla Vaddi was being torpedoed.

The most recent tirade against the government was a report published in Sakshi on how YSR’s dream scheme Pavla Vaddi (25 paise interest scheme to women self-help groups) was being torpedoed because of the non-release of Rs 450 crore towards reimbursement for the last six months.

Sources said the Chief Minister was also peeved over Mr Jagan Mohan Reddy not bothering to call on him even once though he had visited the young MP several times after YSR’s death.

The Rajya Sabha member, Dr K.V.P. Ramachandra Rao, had urged Mr Jagan Mohan Reddy to meet Mr Rosaiah but the latter did not bother.

The only occasion when Mr Rosaiah and Mr Jagan Mohan Reddy met was at an MPs conference held sometime back in Jubilee Hall where the Kadapa MP came down heavily on government over non-implementation of YSR’s pet schemes.