Hyderabad: Five years ago, the Jagan Mohan Reddy government was dragged to court after it painted the gram panchayat and village secretariat buildings in Andhra Pradesh in the colours of the Yuvajana Sramika Rythu Congress Party’s (YSRCP) flag, which it was then ordered to remove. Now, the current administration in the state led by Chandrababu Naidu’s Telugu Desam Party (TDP) is facing the same charges.
The present objection is to the painting of Anna Canteens—reopened by the Naidu government in August—in yellow hues associated with the TDP.
The Andhra Pradesh High Court has admitted a petition by Chandra Sekhar Reddy, former president of the Andhra Pradesh Non-Gazetted Officers’ Association, which questions the yellow paint, with a stripe of red, on the government-run canteens serving subsidised meals to the poor.
Yellow and some red are a prominent feature of the TDP flag.
“The TDP’s objection back then was to the thin strips of blue, green on panchayat buildings. How has the whole façade of Anna Canteens been painted in yellow with a red band now? Even TDP flags are being put up on the buildings,” said Ponnavolu Sudhakar Reddy, the additional advocate general during the YSRCP regime, who is now representing Chandra Sekhar.
Ponnavolu said there were also demands to recover the amount spent on alleged YSRCP colours from Jagan’s party.
“The court has admitted our plea now and has asked the Naidu government to file its response,” Ponnavolu, who is also the YSRCP general secretary in-charge of legal affairs, told ThePrint.
However, while issuing notices to the state government Wednesday, the high court bench of Chief Justice Dhiraj Singh Thakur and Justice Ravi Cheemalapati reportedly observed that the petition “appears to be filed for political reasons”.
The matter is scheduled for the next hearing after six weeks.
TDP’s allegations during YSRCP rule
Soon after assuming power in 2019, the Jagan-led government had begun painting some government buildings, especially the panchayat and other-village level offices, in YSRCP colours of blue, white and green.
In August 2019, orders to this effect were issued by the principal secretary of the Panchayati Raj Department. In one such instance, the party flag colours were allegedly painted over the Indian tricolour on a grama sachivalayam (village secretariat) in Anantapur district, which had attracted severe criticism.
The orders were later quashed by the high court, which restrained the department from painting the government buildings in shades similar to party colours “by use of public money”, and directed the principal secretary to have the colours removed from the buildings before the panchayat polls, originally scheduled for the last week of March 2020.
At the time, Naidu, who was then the Opposition leader, had accused the YSRCP of wasting public money.
“The high court order underlines the appalling rule in the state. Even public toilets have not been spared of the YSRCP colours. Rs 1,500 crore was spent to paint the government buildings and now another Rs 1,500 crore will have to be spent to paint other colours. Who will pay this Rs 3,000 crore?” Naidu had remarked after the court order.
The high court was hearing petitions, including one filed by one Muppa Venkateswara Rao of Pallapadu village in Guntur district, who had alleged that public money was being misused by the ruling party for cheap election publicity.
Though this was viewed as a setback to the YSRCP ahead of the local body polls, the party had gone on to trounce TDP-backed candidates in a landslide victory in February 2021, when the panchayat polls finally took place after delays caused by COVID-19 and other factors.
Even though the high court had asked the then chief secretary to ensure compliance with its directions, submit a report and formulate guidelines specifying suitable colour combinations for government properties, the YSRCP government challenged the orders in the Supreme Court.
The apex court, too, in June 2020, ordered the government to remove the colours from the buildings within four weeks.
Naidu then demanded that the expenditure on party colours should be recovered from YSRCP and its favoured officials.
‘Double standards’
Now, YSRCP leaders are reminding TDP of the court orders and Naidu’s demands, highlighting the party’s “double standards”.
“What was wrong that day cannot be right today. TDP chief Naidu, who takes such moral high ground, should practise what he preaches. The Anna Canteen and panchayat building cases are exactly the same,” another YSRCP general secretary, Satish Reddy, told ThePrint.
However, TDP spokesperson Jyothsna Tirunagari disagreed. “YSRCP colours were painted on the panchayat buildings based on government orders. That is not the case with Anna Canteens. A few of them, as per my understanding, are operating from private buildings, and donations are sought from people to run it as a trust,” Tirunagari said.
Satish argued that regardless of such considerations, the government-run programme should be free of links to any party colour.
ThePrint reached out to Anil Singhal, special chief secretary, Municipal and Urban Development—which runs the canteens—via phone and WhatsApp for a comment on why the colour yellow was chosen. The report will be updated as and when a response is received.
However, one municipal commissioner, on condition of anonymity, told ThePrint that the food outlets were modelled and yellow-red colours applied following a template—photos, colour codes—sent to them by the government.
The reopening of the Anna Canteens had featured as a promise on the TDP-JSP (Janasena Party) manifesto for the 2024 assembly polls.
Named after TDP founder and former Andhra chief minister ‘Anna’ N.T. Rama Rao, Anna (big brother) Canteens, provide subsidised meals for the working class and poor, with breakfast, lunch and dinner costing Rs 5 each. The outlets, set up by the previous TDP government in 2018, were closed after Jagan Mohan Reddy came to power in 2019.
Chief Minister Naidu, accompanied by wife Bhuvaneswari, had inaugurated one Anna Canteen at Gudivada on Independence Day. Their son and minister Nara Lokesh opened a couple of them in his constituency, Mangalagiri.
Since then, about 200 outlets have come up across the state. Each canteen serves about 350 people and the total daily expenditure incurred on these canteens is Rs 53 lakh, requiring around Rs 200 crore per annum, according to government figures.
The authorities have also announced a State Bank of India (SBI) account number for donations for Anna Canteens. At present, the outlets are being run with budgeted expenditure, one official said. “The plan is to operate the food canteens under a trust, headed by a top official like the chief secretary, with a combination of government support and donations.”
(Edited by Mannat Chugh)
