Modi Hyd Visit, Naidu Claims Credit

TDP supremo and former chief minister of Andhra Pradesh N. Chandrababu Naidu, known to be a braggart, said he was proud that his vision has become a reality and is proving to be of great help to the nation, ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Hyderabad. With the GHMC polls just a few days away, Naidu seems to be trying to cash in on the votes through these remarks.

Naidu recalled that he had taken up the initiative to set up Genome Valley to make Hyderabad as a bio-tech hub, three decades ago. “I am happy that Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself is coming to take stock of the manufacturing of Covid vaccine, Covaxin, by Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech.

“I thought of Genome Valley in Hyderabad when ‘biotechnology’ was still in the nascent stage in our country and tried to make Hyderabad a hub for it by providing the necessary ecosystem. Now, there are more than 150 life science companies’ research and development (R&D) wings in that place and Genome Valley had turned into a bio-tech hub. The R&D wing of Bharat Biotech is also present in the Genome Valley and the research on Corona vaccine is going on in the same facility. Genome Valley had once again proved how initiatives taken up with a vision prove beneficial to the future generations,” the former chief minister said.

These remarks would remind one of how he tried to project himself as the creator of Hitech City and placed Hyderabad on the global map of software industry, during the previous elections in Telangana. However, his boasting did not do him any good. Instead, the TDP’s defeat in the polls then was attributed to the repeated bragging by Naidu. It was about Hitech city then and Genome Valley now.

In the wake of such a situation, it has to be seen if Naidu’s claims on Genome Valley would really help him gain the lost ground in Telangana in the upcoming GHMC polls.