Naidu slams State on flood relief works

Hyderabad, Oct 24 : Several TDP MLAs were taken into custody by the Hyderabad Police when they staged dharna before the office of Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy in the Secretariat here on Thursday demanding immediate relief for the cyclone and rain-hit farmers.

The MLAs including Gali Muddukrishnamma Naidu, Devineni Umamaheshwar Rao and Dulipala Narendra staged protest while the Chief Minister was holding a review meeting with the official on rain situation. They alleged that the Chief Minister’s meetings were an eye-wash and nothing concrete was being done to help the affected people. The TDP MLAs raised slogans agaist the State Government and Chief Minister.

The TDP MLAs were then taken into custody and shifted to Saifabad Police Station. On information, TDP president N Chandrababu Naidu himself rushed to police station to get the MLAs released.

Talking to reporters later, Naidu alleged that the State Government has completely failed to help the flood victims. Further, he said that no precautions were taken by the government to minimise the losses despite alerts of heavy rains since the last three days. He recalled that he himself monitored the situation by sitting in the MCH office when about 22 cm rainfall ws recorded during his tenure as the Chief Minister. However, Kiran Kumar Reddy Government failed to act even after 30 cm of rainfall was recorded in several parts of the State.

Naidu said that the government was yet to pay the ex-gratia to the victims of Neelam and Jal cyclones. A similar attitude has been attitude has been adopted towards the victims of Phailin cyclone, he said. INN