Lok Satta founder Jayaprakash Narayan is very much respected by the people of AP and politicians cutting across party lines admire him too for his sagacity.
He is also a man who has the courage to speak his mind. In the assembly during the T-agitation, JP boldly asserted that the TRS was resorting to extortion in the name of the agitation.
Incensed at this, KTR abused him in foul language and had his driver manhandle JP, an event that will go down as a black day in the history of AP assembly.
But cutting to the present, in an interview given to ‘The Hindu’, JP said that his party will support the demand for separate Rayalaseema only if it is for the betterment of the people.
"It (formation of a new state) shouldn’t be for meeting the end goal of somebody else to become a Chief Minister, the question is whether the people of Rayalaseema would stand to gain.
If so, all should support it. My support for the formation of a new state was relative to the twin demands that the Union government agrees to reimburse the revenue deficit of the new state of Rayalaseema with ‘no ifs and buts’ and gives meaningful and long term tax incentives for industries to come up in the Rayalaseema region," he told the newspaper.
It is not regions or people who are responsible for the backwardness of a certain region. it is corrupt or indifferent leaders at the helm.
KCR promised a ‘Bangaru Telangana’ but 18 months into his administration, the spate of farmer suicides in Telangana is at an all -time high with there being no steps undertaken to redress their grievances.
Division will only result in one set of corrupt leaders being replaced by a local bunch of equal if not more corrupt, local leaders.
The Kashmiris are caught in the crossfire between India and Pakistan. Shall we agree to some of their leaders’ calls for secession because it will result in better governance? We need honest leaders at the helm, not land grabbers.
And hopefully, pretty soon, the people of AP will get one such leader.
