Without YSRC, Naidu using assembly for politics!

The decision of the YSR Congress party MLAs to boycott the Andhra Pradesh state assembly sessions in protest against the non-disqualification of 23 defected MLAs has come as a golden opportunity for Telugu Desam Party president and chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu.

In the absence of the Opposition, the chief minister has converted the state assembly into a virtual TDP legislature party meeting.

In the wake of his party coming out of the National Democratic Alliance government at the Centre and snapping ties with the Bharatiya Janata Party, Naidu has been fully utilising the assembly platform to launch an attack on the Centre, the BJP and the YSR Congress party.

There is no other major agenda in the House, except Naidu’s speeches. Only routine agenda like question hour and zero hour has been going on.

There has been no reasonable debate on the budget either, as nobody is questioning as to whether any funds are being utilised for any scheme or not.

Not a single day passes without the chief minister making political statements in the House, even going to the extent of making personal attacks on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, finance minister Arun Jaitely, YSRC MP V Vijay Sai Reddy, party president Y S Jaganmohan Reddy and others.

Though it is against the assembly rules for any member to name the people who are not in the House, there is none to raise a point of order to rein in Naidu.

The four BJP members are not in a position to raise their voices as Naidu is shouting them down. Since all the other members are from the TDP, whatever the chief minister is saying goes into the people.

Thus, Naidu is making use of the opportunity to send one-side version of the story into the people.

In this regard, one can say the YSR Congress party has done a big mistake by not attending the House and lost a golden opportunity to counter Naidu point by point.

They could have even created the ruckus in the House and stalled the budget to pull up Naidu for his double standards on special category status.

Whatever YSRC leaders and even the BJP members say at press conferences outside the assembly is not getting adequate attention from the media. Even if they get, it does not go into the records. That way, Naidu outsmarted all of them!