Questioning the tradition of a chief minister always passing on the baton to his son, Jana Sena chief Pawan Kalyan on Monday said that this practice has to be broken at some point. The Jana Sena chief led a historic march with the participation of a large number of party supporters on Sir Arthur Cotton barrage across the Godavari river starting from Pichuka Lanka to Dowleswaram, covering a distance of about 2.5 km on Monday.
Addressing a public meeting soon after the march, he said that villagers were facing hardships for want of basic amenities in their villages and flayed the state government for failing to hold elections to the gram panchayats. He targeted Mr Naidu’s son and minister for panchayat raj, Mr Lokesh, and wondered as to what he knew about the panchayat raj and development of infrastructure in villages.
He said, “People can inherit the surname of father, physical features, DNA, and properties but not political power. I advise Lokesh as an elder brother to acquire the skills of governance so that he can inherit political power from his father.” Explaining about his family background, Mr Kalyan said that his great-grandfather worked as municif, his grandfather as a postman, while his father worked as a police constable and asked as to why it was not possible for him to become the Chief Minister of the state.