HYDERABAD, India, 15 March 2008 — Congress President Sonia Gandhi yesterday exuded confidence about the ruling United Progressive Alliance coalition at the center and the Congress government in Andhra Pradesh retaining power in the next year’s parliamentary and state assembly elections.

Speaking at a farmers’ rally at Jaggampeta town after opening an irrigation project in the coastal Andhra district of East Godavari, Sonia said that “we have over one year left for the AP Assembly elections and Lok Sabha elections. We are fulfilling the promises that we have made in the Congress party’s manifesto and the common minimum program of the coalition government.”

“We will continue to work for the welfare of each and every section of society. This we will continue to do with dedication. That is the distinctive characteristic of the Congress party. It is only Congress which can work for the dignity, security and prosperity of each and every individual and every person of the country, especially the poorest of the poor and for our women and our children,” she said.

Praising the state chief minister’s Jalayagnam initiative to take up and complete irrigation projects across the state, she said: “This is a huge and massive program that will provide irrigation to all the districts.

During the Telugu Desam Party regime, not a single irrigation project was taken up. It is only under Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy’s Congress government that so many irrigation projects have been taken up.”

Listing the achievements of the state government, Sonia said that Andhra Pradesh was leading the country in the implementation of national rural employment guarantee program. It has emerged as a model for other states.

In just two years, seven million laborers have been able to open post office savings accounts for themselves, she added.

The Congress party chief questioned the credentials of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) to champion the cause of the country’s farmers when they did nothing for them during the six years of National Democratic Alliance rule.

“Today these very leaders of the BJP, TDP and NDA, who claim to feel for our farmers, are criticizing us. I want to ask them what did they do when they were in the government, why did they not give such a huge loan waiver to our farmers when they were in power. What they are saying today is sheer hypocrisy,” she thundered.

She quoted Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as saying recently that “if the farmers have suffered for so many years, there is only one reason and that is because of the wrong policies of NDA supported by the TDP.”

She said she felt happy being among the farmers of Godavari districts — the rice bowl of the country — and that their district ranked among the best in the country for enterprise and hard work. She said that the first phase of the lift irrigation project she opened would provide water to almost 200,000 acres of land. “This is a huge irrigation project which will benefit tens of thousands of farmers in the Godavari districts,” she added.