Senior Congress leader and Rajya Sabha member K V P Ramachandra Rao, who is known for his soft talk even at his strongest political rivals and hardly makes any strong comments against them, burst out against Telugu Desam Party president and Andhra chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu for claiming credit for the Polavaram project.
Reacting strongly to removal of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s name from the Polavaram project (It was named as Indira Sagar Project during the Y S Rajasekhar Reddy regime), KVP expressed surprise over Naidu’s claim that it was his dream project.
“When did you start dreaming about the project? Why did you sleep over the same between 1995 and 2004 and did not make any progress in the project work?” he asked.
“It is like nurse claiming credit for the delivery of the baby, setting aside the labour pains of the mother who has born the baby for nine months,” he said.
Explaining the timeline of the Polavaram project, KVP said the project made a major progress during the YSR regime, including getting all clearances from the Centre and even the national project status.
“Pending the approval for head works, YSR government more or less completed all other works including right and left canals. You have now completed the remaining 20 per cent of the works on right canal by spending huge amounts in the name of Pattiseema project and are claiming to be Bhagiratha. This is ridiculous,” he said.
The Congress MP accused the chief minister of compromising on the special category status for special package.
“What did Naidu get ultimately? Just less than Rs 2000 crore loan from Nabard. This is peanuts compared to what had been spent by the previous Congress government. But he is behaving as if he has shouldered the entire financial burden of the project,” he said.