The interim railway budget presented by Union Railway Minister Laloo Prasad Yadav in Parliament, ghastly accident of Coramandal Express in Orissa and various important decisions taken by the Rajasekhara Reddy Cabinet are the only big news in all the Telugu dailies on Saturday.
As can be expected of them, each daily had its own interpretation of Railway budget. Sakshi highlighted the tariff reduction for passengers of various classes, saying it was Laloo's "prasadam" to them. Andhra Jyothy described it as a hollow budget without any new facilities for passengers and criticised that it had done little for Andhra Pradesh.
On the other hand, Eenadu said it was an election-oriented budget and various sops announced in the budget were only in view of the forthcoming elections.
With regard to the State Cabinet meeting, Sakshi said it was the last meeting of the Rajasekhara Reddy's council of ministers and its lead is about increase in honorarium of sarpanches, mandal parishad presidents and members and zilla parishad chairpersons and members.
However, Andhra Jyothy focussed on the indiscriminate land allotment by the State Cabinet in its last meeting. It said the three-hour meeting decided to allocate 10,000 acres of land, including precious Banjara Hills lands to various agencies like VANPIC and Lepakshi.
Eenadu carried only a small box with headlines of various decisions taken by the Cabinet, mainly inclusion of more castes in BC list.
Andhra Jyothy carried the second part of its managing director V Radhakrishna's "autobiography" explaining how he had taken over the daily and brought it to the top stage; apart from a box item, recalling Rosaiah's comment in the past describing former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi as "political prostitute," when he was in the Opposition in 1978.
Both Sakshi and Andhra Jyothy prominently carried the photograph of leaders of Maha Kootami submitting a memorandum to Governor N D Tiwari, demanding action against Chief Minister Dr Y S Rajasekhara Reddy in connection with Satyam-Maytas, Sakshi and Velugubanti scandals.
