Sonia, Naidu trade charges

In a scathing attack against chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu's nine-year rule in the state, AICC president Sonia Gandhi today blamed him for totally neglecting the interests of farmers.

Addressing a huge public meeting here today as part of her last leg of campaign in Andhra Pradesh, she stoutly denied the accusation of Naidu that the Congress was responsible for the water scarcity in Krishna Delta.

"Succesive Congress governments in the past had constructed all the irrigation projects that exist in the state. Naidu's government has even failed to provide water through the canals, leaving the Delta farmers high and dry," Sonia alleged.

She was mainly responding to Naidu's fresh tirade against the rival Congress party in an effort to corner it in the tight fight which prevails in the many districts of the coastal Andhra region that has witnessed severe water crisis for the past three years.

She pointed out that both NDA government and the state government had failed to address the farmers problems and have deceived them with publicity blitz.

"They have done nothing for women and youth either. They too are being deceived by both the regimes with empty promises," she claimed.

In the meanwhile the TDP supremo N Chadrababu Naidu continued with his tirade against Congress by warning the Andhra electorate that not a single drop of water would flow down from Nagarjuna Sagar if the Congress-Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) combine was allowed to form the government in the state.

Addressing a public meeting at Tatikonda, where social welfare minister J R Pushparaj is contesting, Naidu asked the people to not to vote for Congress under the influence of its false promises.

He criticised Sonia Gandhi for not mediating on the Alamatti water release issue even though her own party's government in Karnataka had denied the people of Andhra of their rightful share of Krishna water.

He has also addressed election meetings at Peddakurapadu, Sattenapally, Piduguralla, Macharla and Vinukonda in Guntur district on Friday.