Pawan Kalyan lacks boldness to question Chandrababu Naidu: Jagan Reddy

Former Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Jagan Mohan Reddy criticised Deputy Chief Minister Pawan Kalyan and said he didn't have any courage to question Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu, thus he targeted a woman Dalit minister.

In Short

• Jagan Mohan Reddy implies Pawan Kalyan is afraid of Chandrababu Naidu
• Reddy says Kalyan can't question Naidu so targets a Dalit minister
• He says the Deputy Chief Minister can only deliver movie dialogues

Former Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Jagan Mohan Reddy said Deputy Chief Minister Pawan Kalyan lacked the courage to question Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu, hit out at a Dalit minister.

The YSRCP chief was reacting to Kalyan’s criticism of Home minister Vangalapudi Anitha regarding the dismal state of law and order in Andhra Pradesh.

Jagan took a jibe at the Jana Sena leader and said: “Whose responsibility is law and order? Isn’t it directly under the Chief Minister? Whom should you (Kalyan) question when law and order (in the state) fails? Not Chandrababu Naidu? He (Kalyan) doesn’t have the boldness to question Chandrababu Naidu,” Reddy said, addressing the media at his home in Tadepalli.

Reddy expressed his surprise that the state’s deputy chief minister would criticise the failure of law and order so publicly and target a woman Dalit minister and yet “she will take it” without complaint.

Quashing all speculations about a rift in the NDA government in Andhra Pradesh, Home minister Vangalapudi Anitha had said she was taking “Pawan Kalyan's comments positively” and that the deputy chief minister had not said she had failed as a home minister.

Kalyan, at a rally on Monday in Pithapuram, had rebuked Anitha for the law and order situation in the state. He warned that unless there was an improvement, he would be forced to "take over the home department as well".

Reddy pointed out the double standards of Kalyan’s response when the husband of a Telugu Desam Party (ruling party) councillor allegedly raped a Dalit woman in Kalyan’s constituency, Pithapuram.

“He doesn’t have the courage to question Chandrababu Naidu, but he will say he’ll ‘skin people alive’ and deliver movie dialogues,” Reddy remarked.

The former chief minister went on to accuse the NDA government of inefficiency and undermining democracy, alleging that the state was suffering from widespread injustice.

Reddy also said that the NDA government in the state had not fulfilled its promises and that education, healthcare and agriculture in Andhra Pradesh was being neglected.