TDP challenges Congress for debate on SC welfare

Kakinada, Nov 22 (UNI) Telugu Desam Party (TDP) State SC cell President Varla Ramaiah today dared the Congress leaders to share a common platform to prove which government--the previous TDP or the present Congress--had done more work for the welfare of the scheduled castes in the Andhra Pradesh.

Talking to mediapersons at the TDP office here along with State SC cell Secretary Guttala Sujata and former MLA Pulaparti Narayanamurthy, he alleged that the SCs were being neglected on all fronts in the state and the Congress government had imposed a cut of Rs 1,972 crore in the SC's welfare budget during past four years of its rule.

Recalling that Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy had announced at the SC Entrepreneurs Meet a few months back that he would create a Trust with a corpus fund of Rs 1,000 crore to help the SCs to come up industrially, Mr Ramaiah alleged that it proved to be a non-starter.

On the sand auction scam in East Godavari district, he asked Small Scale Industries Minister Gollapalli Surya Rao to give evidence before Lok Ayukta to prove his charges of corruption against his ministerial colleague J C Diwakara Reddy.

UNI XC VA AKM 1651