When Andhra Pradesh CM YS Jaganmohan Reddy appointed thousands of village and ward volunteers soon after YSRCP government came to power, it was believed that it would provide employment to thousands of unemployed youth as well help people to access government schemes and services at their doorsteps.

But the Jagan government is using volunteers for its political interests at the cost of public money.

Volunteers are now openly campaigning for YSRCP for the upcoming Tirupati Lok Sabha bypoll on April 17 which amounts to gross abuse of power by the state government.

Volunteers are visiting every household and distributing open letters written by Jagan on the welfare schemes and development programmes undertaken by YSRCP government during the past two years and seeking votes.

The ministers, YSRCP MLAs, MLCs, MPs and other local leaders are holding meetings with volunteers against the norms and assigning them various tasks to secure votes for YSRCP.

The mobile phones of volunteers are being seized before these meetings to ensure that they don’t record any audios or videos of these meetings and ‘leak’ to others which may invite action from the Election Commission and criticism from the Opposition parties. The phones are handed over to them after the meetings.

Each volunteer has been given a task to secure majority votes in their jurisdiction in favour of YSRCP and are being warned that they may lose their jobs if they fail to get votes for YSRCP.