Shameless

By Desaraju Surya
Hyderabad: When it comes to wasting public money, none can beat our netas. They eat away crores and crores of rupees under one guise or the other -- all in the name of "public service." Clearly, there is no accountability on part of our so-called people's representatives and they conveniently get away with what all (wrong) they do. The Andhra Pradesh state Information and Public Relations Department (I&PR) recently published two glossy books containing Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy's reply to the motion of thanks to the Governor's address -- both in the Assembly and the Legislative Council. Publication of such books is as a part of the unabashed publicity blitz launched by the Y S Rajasekhara Reddy government in this "election year." The books were distributed to the MLAs and MLCs in the Assembly and the Council, which is a colossal waste as none of the members care to read those books. These books are also being sent to the districts for public distribution (read the Congress cadres). The I&PR special commissioner C Parthasarathi, however, pleaded ignorance about the cost incurred in bringing out the two books. He said there was nothing unusual about the books and only 1000 copies each were printed. "We only tried to present the Chief Minister's speech rather differently and hence included some photographs highlighting various schemes," Parthasarathi tried to reason. Senior legislators, however, said such ostentatious books were never published in the past to highlight the Chief Minister's address to the Assembly. "It is nothing but blatant misuse of public money. The Rajasekhara Reddy government is trying to come back to power only through publicity. Hundreds of crores of rupees is going down the drain in the process," TDP MLA Payyavula Kesav alleged. Entitled "Naa prajalaku teliste chalu..." (It's enough if my people know), the 72-page volume-1 contains the Chief Minister's reply to the Assembly while the 80-page volume-2 "Kapatam leni naa prajala kosam..." is his reply to the motion of thanks in the Council. The foreword to the volume-1, by an unidentified author, says: "This oration is fit to be included as a lesson in the curriculum for contemporary political science students." Absolutely ridiculous! Both the books are splashed with photographs of Congress president Sonia Gandhi, including her very recent trip to the state for the inauguration of the Pushkara Lift Irrigation Scheme and the Hyderabad International Airport. Of course, numerous pictures of the Chief Minister taken on various occasions like his participation in the Chief Ministers' conference with the Prime Minister, inauguration of different schemes, his district tours and also his address to the Legislature. Ironically, Rajasekhara Reddy was the same person, as the then leader of opposition, who criticised his predecessor N Chandrababu Naidu for "wasting public money" on unwanted "publicity hype." Once in power, Reddy conveniently seems to have forgotten the value of people's money!