Amaravati: Andhra Pradesh chief minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy refuted former chief minister Chandrababu Naidu's claims on zero interest loans to farmers. Substantiating his speech with statistics from government departments, YS Jagan pointed out that year after year, the TDP government had paid only a fraction of the outstanding loans to farmers. YS Jagan criticised the TDP chief for trying to mislead the house by making tall claims while there was an outstanding of Rs. 11,600 cr during the TDP rule, only Rs. 600 cr had been paid by the Chandrababu government which was now claiming that farmers' loans had been cleared.

The TDP government had given 5% of the total amount and was trumpeting its claim on zero interest loans. The chief minister likened this to someone borrowing Rs. 1 lakh, repaying Rs.5,000 and then claiming that the entire amount had been cleared.

The chief minister further said that DWCRA women's groups were similarly betrayed by the TDP government. At this point, the chief minister's speech was interrupted by TDP members leading to sharp exchanges between Treasury benches and members of the leading opposition party.

The Telugu Desam Party insisted in the Andhra Pradesh legislative assembly that it had continued 25 paise interest to farmers, as also zero interest loans, initiated by the Kiran Kumar Reddy government in 2103-14. While TDP MLA Nimmala Rama Naidu spoke briefly, former chief minister Chandrababu Naidu spoke at length reading out figures from documents to support his claims.

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