There was quite a sight near the NTR statue at the RK beach in Visakhapatnam on Friday morning as people lined up for receiving a gift on Andhra Pradesh Panchayat Raj Minister Ayyanna Patrudu’s birthday.
However, the people were not receiving cash, but kind - in the form of onions.
According to a Times of India report, the idea of distributing onions for the minister’s birthday when the vegetable was priced at Rs 60 per kg was the idea of 36-year-old President of TDP SC and ST Cell for Visakhapatnam district P Vijay Kumar.
Vijay is the political disciple of Ayyanna Patrudu and distributed over a 1,000 kg of onions to the public.
Each person was given two kg of the vegetable and there was a long queue to receive the birthday gift from Vijay on behalf of Ayyanna Patrudu
Vijay is reported to have spent nearly Rs 50,000 to purchase the onions and distributed the onions for nearly two hours.
My motive behind supplying onions free of cost to the people was to get hearty birthday wishes and goodwill from residents for my political guru, who is the man behind my political career of 15 years... this time I wanted to do something different that would be useful to the public at large. Hence, I hit upon the idea of distributing onions to convey my wishes along with people to Ayyanna.
—Vijay to TOI
(At The Quint, we are answerable only to our audience. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member. Because the truth is worth it.)