YSR cheered with 'varsham' slogan

CM Vache, Varsham Vache’(CM has come, rain has come), was the new slogan that filled the air when a huge gathering of people spotted the chopper that brought chief minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy to the town of Uravakonda, 55 km from here, on Monday.

The CM entered Anantapur district as part of his Election Jaitra Yatra after a long gap. Nobody was quite sure when he visited the town last. Some say this was the second visit in the last five years. Anantapur is the only district where the TDP won six assembly segments even when the Congress wave swept the state in 2004.

The TDP is summoning all its energies to increase the tally to ten while the Congress wants to win all the segments. But, the delimitation process, bickerings in the Congress, presence of strong PRP candidates, complaints against the local Congress leaders for skewing all the schemes to benefit only the party supporters, are being used by the TDP as campaign issues.

On Sunday night, there was heavy rain in the constituency, from where Congress candidate Y Visweswara Reddy is pitted in a triangular fight with TDP’s P Keshava and PRP’s G Chennakeshava Rao.

On Monday, Congress leaders tried their level best to portray the coming of rain as a good omen. At the public meeting, the organisers repeatedly asked the public to raise the slogans ‘CM vache, Varsham Vache’.

True to form, a local Congress leader said due to frequent rains in the past five years, the ground water table had risen unimaginably. “Earlier, water was not available even at 60 feet. After Y S Rajasekhara Reddy became the chief minister, we get water just at 30 feet depth,” said a Congress leader.

The pleasant cool weather helped the Congress leaders to mobilize a large crowd for the meeting. The organisers were also helped by the fact that it was also the day of village fair in Uravakonda when people from neighbouring villages throng the town to purchase commodities for the week.

Impressed by the crowds, the chief minister also tried to lift the mood of the people by reminding them of the dry days of the TDP rule. “In the nine years of TDP rule, rains failed. The regime brought all round sadness to the people,” he said, devoting most of his speech to welfare measures like NREGP, pensions, farm loan waivers and Rs 5000 incentives to those who paid loans.