Attack on YS Jagan premeditated, cold-blooded attempt on his life by TDP men: Sajjala Ramakrishna Reddy

AMARAVATI: YSRCP general secretary Sajjala Ramakrishna Reddy on Sunday described the attack on Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy as a premeditated, cold-blooded attempt on his life to intimidate and stop him from continuing his successful ‘Memantha Siddham’ bus yatra.

Addressing a media conference at the YSRCP office in Tadepalli, Ramakrishna Reddy said that the attack was preplanned as some mechanism was used to send the stone or the pellet to reach Jagan forcefully which could only be done with an airgun or a catapult by a sharpshooter.

“The stone that hit Jagan first left a deep gash then also hit YSRCP candidate Vellempalli Srinivas seriously injuring his retina. He was kept under 48-hour observation,” Sajjala explained the serious nature of the incident.

Sajjala said that only the TDP-JSP-BJP combine was to lose from the success of the Yatra. “They thought the impact of the yatra would diminish after Rayalaseema but it continued in other districts much to the disappointment of the TDP chief Nara Chandrababu Naidu. That is why his tone changed in recent days and started inciting hatred and violence,” he said.

Sajjala played a few clips of Naidu encouraging the cadre to pick up stones and hit the bull (Jagan) and in another one telling them that their anger could turn Jagan into ashes. He said that the TDP was steeped in such acts starting from the backstabbing of the founder of NT Rama Rao the founder of TDP to the Mallela Babaji’s fake attack on NTR and his mysterious death thereafter.

Condemning the attack on YS Jagan Mohan Reddy, he said that while the national leaders including Prime Minister Narendra Modi have Security failure condoled the attack, the TDP had been calling it a security breach and trying to blame the police for the attack.

“The attack was not casual. It is targeted and is a planned attempt to murder YS Jagan Mohan Reddy. They tried this in 2019. This time it could have been harmful to the life of YS Jagan. God saved him,” he said reiterating that the yatra would not stop and it would continue from Monday after a day's rest as per the advice of the doctors that attended to YS Jagan on Sunday night.

He pointed out that YS Jagan Mohan Reddy need not play cheap tricks to gain sympathy as the victory of the party in the ensuing elections was a bygone conclusion.

“We need no sympathy. In 2003 after the Alipiri incident, Nara Chandrababu Naidu thought sympathy would save him, But he lost the election. That is his school of thought. He encourages hatred just like he made Lakshmi Parvati a scapegoat in NTR’s episode,” Sajjala observed.

He said that the police investigation would reveal whether there was a hand of Naidu or his son Lokesh in the attack on Jagan. “The investigation will bring out the truth.YSRCP cadre was silent in protest today. We did not react violently. We believe that security should not hinder leaders from reaching out to people as there is no place for violence in democracy,” he added.