Plain Speaking Naidu now eats his words

their demands—and that includes free power—even if it is at the risk of being ridiculed because of the plain speaking he did earlier.

As his Meekosum Chaitanya yatra catches the by-poll fever in Telangana—the region goes to the polls on May 29—Naidu is promising farmers nine hours of free, uninterrupted electricity and the waiver of all crop loans.

In the middle of a packed schedule in Warangal district, he says, “I have met thousands of poor people, farmers and socially and economically backward people in the last 27 days. These people are being cheated by the Congress government and Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy and I will expose the misdeeds of this government.” But he seems a little off the mark when he says that because the people are demanding something he sneered at just a few years ago.

At Raghunathpalli in Janagam constituency in Warangal district, he is besieged by farmers complaining of lack of water and erratic power supply. But Naidu has learnt to listen to them patiently. In the scorching heat, with only a hastily erected tent for cover, he poses several questions to the farmers and is taken aback by their answers. “We get electricity for one or two hours a day. We cannot irrigate the fields. Sometimes power comes at midnight or at 4 a.m. There is no drinking water for days together,” says an angry farmer.

There is nothing here that Naidu doesn’t understand but he knows he has to play his cards right. After all, even when he set the trail blazing as CEO of AP for nine years, it was the twin monsoon failures that brought him down and out of power.

At a well-attended public meeting in Janagam, Naidu vows to set everything right. “We will come back to power in the next elections. I will see to it that these problems are set right. It is just a matter of few more months. I will take care of all your water and power problems,” he assures the crowds.

But in Telangana, Naidu seemed to avoid the tricky statehood issue. “There are other important issues to be dealt with, like the rising prices of essential commodities,” he says. Naidu may not say it but he can’t raise the issue since he has aligned with the CPI(M) for the bypolls and the Left party is contesting in two seats.

On May 20, Naidu completed 30 days of his yatra. Starting from Chandragiri in Chittur, he worked his way up to Telangana where by-polls to 16 seats would be held on May 29.

Whether it is Warangal, Mahboobnagar, Secunderabad or Ranga Reddy district, there is a common thread to the problems—water shortage, lack of drinking water, erratic power supply and lack of civic amenities.

Besides free power and crop loan waivers, Naidu is promising Rs 1,000 a month to jobless youth, says he will raise pension for widows to Rs 500 and reservation for Muslims in educational institutions.