Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy on April 13 asserted that the TDP’s claim to have uplifted the Backward Classes (BCs) was just a piece of rhetoric, which was partly evident from the allocation of many BC seats to candidates hailing from non-BC communities, including Nara Lokesh in Mangalagiri constituency, which was dominated by the BCs.
In contrast, the YSRCP allocated 50% of 175 Assembly and 20 Lok Sabha (total 200) seats to the SCs, STs, BCs and minorities, and announced a BC candidate for Kuppam constituency as well.
Addressing a meeting of the weavers’ community near Mangalagiri, Mr. Jagan Mohan Reddy said the government tied up with e-commerce platforms such as Amazon, Myntra, and Flipkart to sell handlooms, and provided ₹460 crore for the development of handloom weavers.
As far as empowerment of weavers was concerned, seven municipal chairpersons belonged to the community. Looking at the TDP’s 2014 manifesto, he said that TDP chief N. Chandrababu Naidu and his alliance could not score even two out of 100 marks.
Mr. Jagan Mohan Reddy went on highlighting Mr. Naidu’s “failed promises” such as property tax exemption for handloom cooperative societies, ID cards for the loom workers, a special fund (budget allocation) of ₹1,000 crore for handloom weavers, free health insurance for weavers and increase in their pensions.
“In the last 58 months, the YSRCP government spent over ₹3,706 crore on the welfare of handloom weavers, without any corruption and involvement of middlemen. Through YSR Nethanna Nestham, a sum of ₹970 crore had been spent to the benefit of 1,00,006 weavers,” he said.
During Mr. Naidu’s term, only ₹1,000 pension was given to the beneficiaries (weavers) and it was increased just two months before the elections, whereas the YSRCP government gave them ₹3,000.
The TDP government had spent only ₹4,000 crore per year, but the YSRCP dispensation spent ₹2,000 crore per month, and they were distributed at the people’s doorstep, he said.
