VIJAYAWADA: Ahead of the ‘long march’ to be taken up by Jana Sena chief Pawan Kalyan in Visakhapatnam on Sunday, the YSRC leaders launched a tirade dubbing the event as a “wrong march”.
Alleging that the actor-turned-politician was acting at the behest of TDP supremo N Chandrababu Naidu, Water Resources Minister P Anil Kumar, Agriculture Minister Kurasala Kanna Babu and MLA Karanam Dharmasri asserted that the sand scarcity would soon be resolved as the flooding in river basins was receding.
Speaking to reporters at the party office in Tadepalli on Saturday, the ministers pointed out that the sand supply was hit because of continuous rainfall and inflows to reservoirs. “While on one hand, the farming community is happy about the rains, the sand supply is hit due to floods in the last three months. Srisailam dam has been filled about seven times and Prakasam barrage gates were open for the last couple of months. In such a situation, how can sand be extracted? Even the rivers in drought-hit Anantapur district are overflowing,” Anil Kumar said. They also alleged illegalities in sand mining during the TDP regime, pointing out incidents including the National Green Tribunal imposing Rs 100 crore fine on the government. “Several issues happened in the last five years.
Why didn’t Pawan question the TDP then?
Chandrababu’s son Lokesh staged a protest for five hours in Guntur recently, now Naidu’s adopted son wants to do a long march in Vizag. It is actually a wrong march. If they are really concerned, why not do it in areas where Krishna or Godavari are flowing with brimming water? Pawan is here to implement Naidu’s agenda,” Kanna Babu alleged. The ministers noted that of the identified 267 sand reaches in the state, only 60 were in operation due to floods. “Efforts are being made to resolve the scarcity beginning next week when the floods recede,” they added. Meanwhile, Vizag MLA Gudivada Amarnath said Kalyan was misleading people by labelling sand scarcity as a man-made crisis, while in fact it was due to floods.