Explain why poverty increased in your two-year rule: TDP asks Jagan

Ramakrishnudu asserted that it was the basic responsibility of Chief Minister to explain to the people on the ever-deepening economic crisis since he himself released a book on his government's achievements.

"The CM's book was nothing but a bundle of lies with no proper information provided to reflect the factual position of the State in terms of growth rate, capital expenditure, debt-GSDP ratio, per capita income, etc," he told reporters here.

TDP leader asked why Jagan Reddy failed to explain the reasons for the increase in excise revenue even in the pandemic time when most other sectors like stamps and registration performed very poorly. "The present regime was boasting of spending Rs. 95,000 Cr on welfare alone in the last 2 years. Then he should explain why the incomes of the poorer sections came down and why the economic inequalities rose sharply," he said.

Ramakrishnudu expressed shock at how Jagan could bring out a book when he had the least patience even to discuss the basic economic and growth indicators like the GSDP, fiscal consolidation, etc on the floor of the AP Legislative Assembly.

"The present book is full of falsehoods and just a publicity stunt in order to hide Chief Minister's inability to lead the state on the path of development," he said.

TDP leader asked how Jagan could talk about development and economy when his two-year regime had cut down capital expenditure by nearly 13 percent from 2018-`19 to 2020-21.

"Can the ruling party leaders anywhere in the state say with pride that they have laid any road or built any government building in the past 2 years? Not a single school building or hostel or hospital has been built. The YCP's only achievement was to change colors on the public buildings that the TDP had built," he said.

Ramakrishnudu asserted that the CM has no right to talk about the nature of his government's performance considering his total failure in all aspects.

"The government was referring to overall fall in the revenues due to Covid-19 but it was not giving accounts for the massive loans and off-budget borrowings. Those loans were obviously not spent for development and the ruling party owed an explanation to the people on this," he said.

Decrying the financial irresponsibility of the YCP rule, Ramakrishnudu recalled how Jagan and his party leaders made baseless comments against the loans taken during the TDP regime. "Now, in the last two years, the YCP regime has got over Rs. 1.6 lakh crore. The CM and his ministers should tell the people why they had not spent all that money on productive assets under capital expenditure," he said.

TDP leader deplored that the Jagan regime's reckless financial policies have now pushed the state's outstanding debt to Rs. 4.47 lakh Crore at a time when the budget and revenues were coming down on account of the pandemic crisis and the government's willful destruction of public assets.

Ramakrishnudu feared that AP would slip into economic chaos in the next one or two years considering the growing debt burden and decreasing revenues. "The budget might see just 2 to 3 percent increase by next year but the debt servicing would rise by 100 percent. CM Jagan and his ministers had no clue to solve this big problem. The rise in GSDP-debt ratio to 36.46 percent was a cause of greater alarm under the YCP rule," he said.