Hyderabad:
Revenue minister N Raghuveera Reddy's comments on Opposition leader Chandrababu Naidu during the course of the debate on drought generated immense heat in the Assembly Sunday with TDP members taking serious exception to them.
The wordy duel quickly degenerated into personal allegations. Normalcy was restored with the intervention of speaker N Manohar.
Raghuveera Reddy, speaking on the drought, made an oblique reference to a statement made in the past by Naidu that agriculture was a sector that did not need much attention. He also ridiculed the farmer headgear worn by Naidu during his Rythu Porubata tours.
Taking serious exception to these comments, TDP members hit back at Raghuveera Reddy. For more than 15 minutes they stalled proceedings despite the speaker requesting them to resume their seats.
Ravula Chandrasekhara Reddy (TDP) said, "We are all prepared to resign if Raghuveera Reddy proves that during the Telugu Desam rule fertilisers were sold at police stations as is being done now."
He also objected to Raghuveera Reddy taking a dig at Naidu and said farmers in the state were suffering like never before as they were not able to get remunerative prices for their produce and were being forced to fight for fertilisers everyday.
Chandrasekhara Reddy went a step forward and wanted to know if the revenue minister was conferred a honorary doctorate by a university in Tamil Nadu because of his 'service' to the agriculture sector.
Raghuveera Reddy, reacting to this taunt, said the university that honoured him was a respected institution and since he came from an agricultural family, and his paternal uncle being a gold medalist from that university, it chose to confer him with the doctorate.
"I remember the allegations that the TDP members made when the doctorate was announced. Some of them said the university was the place where counterfeit currency notes were printed," he said and wondered if the TDP came up with such allegations because some of its members had connections with people like Ramakrishna who printed fake currency notes.
He told TDP members not to call him Dr Raghuveera Reddy if they did not like it, since he was not pleading with them to do so, he said.
He also took objection to Chandrasekhara Reddy saying that it was during the TDP's rule that crop insurance was introduced for farmers. "Crop insurance is a Central scheme. What can I say if TDP wants to own that scheme? It seems I will have to sit and listen even if the TDP claims that it was because of its efforts that the country got Independence in 1947," he said as the treasury benches went into peals of laughter.