Bring Grama Swaraj: Vijayamma

Assuring her party members that the YSR Congress would solidly stand by its rank and file in rendering services to the people, the party's honourary president Y S Vijayamma called upon its leaders to face the local body polls with a clear strategy aimed at party victory.

Addressing the party regional meet on the forthcoming local body polls at Vijayawada on Saturday, Vijayamma recalled the words of Mahatma Gandhi that Rama Rajyam is possible only through grama swaraj, and asked the party leaders to work in unison to bring victory to the party.

She asked them to win the local body polls and work towards ushering in "real" grama swaraj to the neglected villages.

"A strong message should go to the people that you are all here to serve them, and that you are always accessible to them," she said.

"You should all become sarpanchs, upa sarpanchs, and MPTC and ZPTC members representing the party in the local body polls. You should work towards this end forget all misunderstandings and differences among you, if any," she told the huge gathering of leaders and activists from Krishna and West Godavari districts.

"The advent of the local body polls is a great opportunity to prove our party's strength and serve the people at the grass root level," she said.

Lashing out at the government for allegedly violating the court's directions on the municipal polls and delaying the local body polls "on the pretext" of court judgments on reservations, Vijayamma said that several villages and hamlets are devoid of basic facilities since the government had delayed the elections.

With the government not releasing any grants to them, the villages have been struggling due to continuous power cuts and jacked-up power bills, she lamented.

"Because of the government's unwillingness to conduct local body polls all these years, the villages have turned into centres of restlessness. The villages are denied even the basic facility of sanitation," she said, and claimed, "Rs. 4,000 crores Central funds of local bodies was held up due to the non-conduct of elections."

If the local body elections had been held in time, local public representatives would have solved the issues, but the villages and mandals have been denied this constitutional opportunity, she said.

"As the government is cunningly conducting the local body polls just ahead of the 2014 elections, party cadres should take them very seriously, as a question of prestige, and defeat the designs of both the Congress and the TDP at the local hustings by adopting a strategic planning," she exhorted the party cadre.

"You should particularly be aware of the possible attempts of the two parties to collude and resort to illegalities in the voters' lists in the polls," she told YSRCP leaders and activists.

Accusing TDP chief Chandrababu Naidu of diverting Rs. 2,000 crore meant for local bodies to other sectors during his regime, Vijayamma said neither the Congress nor the TDP can show even one reason for people to vote for them.

"Prices of all commodities have gone up. RTC charges were hiked thrice, fertilizer prices have gone up by 300%, while Rajiv Yuva Kiranalu has ended as a damp squib. With diesel, petrol and gas prices increasing, and farmers being denied their free power, and with all YSR welfare schemes being diluted with the TDP's backing, why should people vote for both of you?" she said, referring to the Congress and the TDP.

She also said that YSRCP chief Y S Jaganmohan Reddy has become a victim of the two parties' "political conspiracy".

"He has done no wrong, and he will soon come out of jail with a clean image," she opined. (INN)