The Telugu Desam Party (TDP) lambasted the YSRCP government for increasing the power tariffs six times in just two-and-a-half years even as the people grappled with the coronavirus pandemic.
The TDP will be organising protests across the State up to October 31 to exert pressure on the government to roll back the hike. A decision to this effect was taken in a high-level meeting on Monday presided by TDP national president N. Chandrababu Naidu.
The TDP had not increased the power tariffs even by a single rupee during its five-year rule. In contrast, the YSR Congress Party (YSRCP) government has failed to deliver its much-hyped promise not to revise the power tariffs, a release by the TDP said on Monday. Mr. Naidu said the move taken imposed a burden of ₹36,102 crore on the power sector. The power tariff hike alone was fleecing consumers to the tune of ₹11,611 crore.
Expressing concern over the ‘drug mafia’, the TDP leaders demanded that the government should do a detailed investigation into the cases being detected. They alleged that some YSRCP leaders were involved in the drug trade. Drugs were mixed in spurious liquor and sold across the State, they alleged.
The TDP leaders said the government had failed in coming to the rescue of the farmers who had been bearing the brunt of cyclones and struggling with the vagaries of markets. The government’s promise to give input subsidies and pay the premium on crop insurance was confined to rhetoric, they said.
The government has destroyed the ‘people’s capital’ Amaravati. People lost a big asset due to the government’s ill-advised move to divide what would have been a world class city, into three capitals, the TDP leaders added.
