Bandaru predicts early elections

Says BJP would return to power at the Centre; farmers’ issue to be party’s election agenda

Bandaru Dattatreya

KADIRI (ANANTAPUR DT.): State unit president of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Bandaru Dattatreya predicted that his party will return to power at the Centre in the next elections and said problems of farmers would be BJP’s election agenda.

Speaking at the Rayalaseema zone Assembly and Parliamentary constituency convenors’ meeting here on Thursday he asked the party leaders, activists and workers to make use of the ‘political uncertainty’ and convert public support into votes in the next elections.

The previous NDA rule was far better and the present UPA government had simply renamed most of the schemes introduced by the former, he claimed.

He said the Manmohan Singh government at the Centre was the weakest one in the recent decades.

The current developments indicate that elections could be held in November.

Instead of cornering the government on the abnormal rise in the prices of essential commodities and other problems concerning people the Left was hanging onto nuclear agreement issue, he felt.

He flayed the claims of the Congress government on the welfare of farmers and sought to know why 5,468 farmers had committed suicide in Andhra Pradesh alone during the last four years.

There was no clarity on the loan waiver scheme as the State and Central government were claiming a relief of about Rs. 13,000 crores in the State while RBI was putting it at Rs. 9,860 crores.

No bank has prepared the lists of beneficiaries so far, he said and stated that the BJP would waive loans up to Rs. 50,000 if it was voted to power in the next elections. The BJP would soon take up an exercise to elicit the opinion of farmers and general public on loan waiver and prices of essential commodities.

Later, speaking to newspersons he said the political scenario in the State was leading to an uncertainty due to changing equations in political parties and the TDP was losing ground in Telangana.

The BJP would go it alone in the State in the next elections and contest all Assembly and Parliament seats. The party would allot one-third of seats to women.

Telangana issue

He reiterated that BJP was in favour of smaller States and Statehood for Telangana was possible with BJP alone. The party was ready to support a Bill for Telangana even if it was moved in Parliament now.

Farmers were being deceived in land acquisition of SEZs and industries, he added.