Hyderabad: The three-day Mahanadu, or annual conference of ruling Telugu Desam Party, Sunday concluded in Tirupati with the party president and Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu vowing to build a poverty-free and equal society and turn AP in to a model state for the entire country.
The conference set the target of 15 per cent annual growth rate of Andhra Pradesh to make it the top most state in the country by year 2029 and one of the top three states by 2023.
Delivering his concluding address on Sunday afternoon before the thousands of party delegates from AP and Telangana states, Naidu said the party’s selfless and sincere workers were his real strengths.
“The party and its workers are more dear to me than my own family,” he said even as his only son and party national general secretary N Lokesh was the cynosure of all eyes at the Mahanadu.
“The party was struggling to build a society where there will be no poverty and misery. I will always stand by the poor people. I will be like the eldest son of every poor family in the state,” he said.
He recalled that it was the TDP, which raised the pension of the poor from Rs200 (Dh10.9) to Rs1,000 per month. Praising the sacrifices of the party cadres to make it stronger, Naidu said, “party workers are life to me and because of them we could achieve global recognition. I will be indebted to them till my last breath. I am not hungry for power”.
Naidu urged the party workers to upgrade their skills and talents. “In present scientific world nothing can be achieved without innovation”, he said.
Apart from reviewing the performance, development and welfare policies and programmes of the TDP government in Andhra Pradesh and laying guidelines for the future, the Mahanadu also discussed the political situation in Telangana where the party was on the verve of extinction because of the large scale defections to the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS).
The conference also discussed the various disputes between the two Telugu states including the raging issue of sharing of Krishna and Godavari river waters.
Naidu urged his Telangana counterpart K Chandrasekhar Rao not to take up the irrigation projects unilaterally. In his remarks over a resolution on Telangana irrigation projects Naidu, said that Telangana government can continue the work on the irrigation projects that were taken up in united Andhra Pradesh. But he suggested that the new projects should be first discussed in the apex committee comprising the two chief ministers.
Naidu’s son, Nara Lokesh, who spoke on the last day of the Mahanadu, promised he will never commit any mistake that can bring a bad name to his father or the party.
“I am son of the chief minister but not a single allegation of corruption [has been] levelled against me. On the other hand Jaganmohan Reddy (YSR Congress President) misused his father’s power and indulged in massive corruption of thousands of billion,” Lokesh said.
