Bheemunipatnam MLA Ganta Srinivasa Rao on Monday (January 5) said former Chief Minister and YSRCP chief Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy’s attempts to claim credit for the successful completion of the Bhogapuram airport and Google Data Centre in Visakhapatnam indicate he was stooping to a new low in politics.
Addressing a media conference here, Mr. Srinivasa Rao recalled that Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu announced the Bhogapuram airport during his tour of Vizianagaram district on February 12, 2015, and the land acquisition began on April 9. He said approval of the agencies concerned and the feasibility report were received the same year. Though it was initially planned to construct the airport on 5,000 acres, it was later decided to acquire only 2,500 acres, which Mr. Srinivasa Rao had overseen as the then in-charge Minister of Vizianagaram district.
Mr. Jagan had then questioned the need for a second airport when Visakhapatnam Airport lacked enough flights in the afternoons. He had tried to mislead the farmers by promising to return the land acquired from them, if he was voted to power.
The MLA alleged that the cases filed in the court by YSRCP Bhogapuram mandal president Uppada Suryanarayana Reddy, sarpanch Uppada Siva Reddy and YSRCP leaders Kakarlapudi Srinivasa Raju, Sridevi and others had led to inordinate delay in the construction of the airport. He said that Mr. Jagan had even called GMR as Mr. Chandrababu Naidu’s “benami”. Now, however, Mr. Jagan was trying to claim credit for the completion of the airport.
