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August 17, 2026 17:18No backdoor entry in Mega DSC, only merit, says Chandrababu Naidu
There were no backdoor appointments in the Mega DSC, no favouritism and no manipulation, the Chief Minister told the House. The selections went on merit alone.
Its biggest success, he said, is that even candidates who did not secure a post have acknowledged the recruitment was fair. The government stands by a transparent, merit-based system, he stated.
August 17, 2026 16:40‘Why contest elections if you will not attend?’: Congress leader N. Tulasi Reddy on YSRCP’s absenceYSRCP MLAs staying away from the Assembly is the height of foolishness, cowardice and irresponsibility, said N. Tulasi Reddy, the Andhra Pradesh Congress Committee’s State media chairman.
Mr. Jagan Mohan Reddy will attend only if his party is recognised as the principal Opposition and he as Leader of the Opposition. That demand is irrational, Mr. Tulasi Reddy said, and the MLAs backing it are showing the height of servility.
The convention needs 10% of the House. In a 175-member Assembly that is 18 members, and the YSRCP has 11.
He said the Congress had faced the same arithmetic and not walked away. It won 26 of 294 seats in undivided Andhra Pradesh in 1994, three short, and P. Janardhan Reddy sat as floor leader without the title. The Congress fell short in the Lok Sabha too, in 2014 and again in 2019.
If a party will not attend the House, he asked, why contest elections at all.
August 17, 2026 16:33Sports quota follows the YSRCP’s own orders: Prashanthi ReddyThe YSRCP went to the courts to stop the Mega DSC and the recruitment went through anyway, Ms. Prashanthi Reddy told the House. Sixteen thousand three hundred and forty-seven posts were filled in 148 days, she said, where under the previous administration the young waited endlessly for a notification.
On the sports quota. It the Opposition raised in the Council on Monday, she said the recruitment is being done strictly under administration orders issued during the YSRCP’s own tenure, and asked how the party could claim not to know its own rules.
She said the protests in Kovvur drew little local backing and that people were brought in from a neighbouring constituency. She asked whether the YSRCP had the courage to come to the Assembly and debate the DSC with Mr. Lokesh.
August 17, 2026 16:27English medium alone does not raise standards: NaiduFourteen DSCs have been held between 1995 and 2025, the Chief Minister told the House, and 11 of them under him. About 80% of the teachers working in schools and colleges today came through those recruitments, he stated, and none of them drew a charge of corruption.
He turned that on the previous government. While recruiting no teachers between 2019 and 2024, it claimed to have transformed education by bringing in English medium, he stated. Standards do not rise by changing the medium of instruction if the teaching staff is not strengthened.
Anyone found doing wrong will face strict action for as long as he is in office, he stated.
August 17, 2026 16:06‘Is submitting a representation a crime?’: Jagan on five teacher suspensions, in X postFive teachers have been suspended in three days, Mr. Jagan Mohan Reddy said, in YSR Kadapa on the first day and in Anantapur and Sri Sathya Sai districts on the second. Though no such requirement existed when they joined, their offence, he said, was a representation to the Union administration seeking exemption from the TET for serving teachers.
More than one lakh senior teachers are being asked to write the examination after years in service. “Is submitting a representation a crime? As an NDA partner, had not passed a resolution in the Assembly and pressed the Centre himself, does it warrant suspension?”
He asked why the Chief Minister. “You failed to do what you were supposed to do.”
On employees, he said there is still no interim relief, no PRC and five DAs pending in the administration’s third year, and put the total dues, counting arrears, GPF, APGLI, medical reimbursement and leave encashment, at ₹35,000 crore to ₹40,000 crore.
August 17, 2026 15:55If they were confident about the order, why revoke it? asks YSRCP MLC K.R.J. Bharath“A lot of people have come forward saying that around 15 to 20 lakhs of rupees have been given for each post,” Mr. Bharath said, setting out the party’s case against the Mega DSC.
He took it to the sports quota. An earlier government order required every candidate under that quota to sit the DSC entrance examination, he stated. For the 2025 recruitment a fresh order was issued, and it let those candidates be appointed without writing the examination.
“Once the recruitment was finished, they brought another order stating that this examination has to be reconducted again,” he said. “So, if they are not confident on the kind of order that they have issued, why give another one revoking the previous one?”
The party wants Mr. Lokesh out and the CBI in. “The man responsible for all these allegations, Mr. Nara Lokesh, who is heading the education ministry, has to resign and a CBI inquiry has to be conducted,” he said, so that every candidate who sat the examination gets a fair chance.
August 17, 2026 15:33₹904 crore for roads, drainage and water in 29 villages: P. NarayanaMunicipal Administration and Urban Development Minister P. Narayana gave the House the arithmetic of Amaravati on Monday, answering MLAs Tenali Sravan Kumar and Buchaiah Chowdary on the resumption of capital works, the capital behind them and the returnable plots owed to farmers.
Of 119 major infrastructure projects taken up, he said, 97 are under way and four are complete. The government has raised ₹41,187.70 crore for the capital from the World Bank, HUDCO, NABARD, NABFID and the Andhra Pradesh Power Finance Corporation.
On land pooling, he stated 30,173 farmers have received 71,299 returnable plots.
The village side has ₹904 crore behind it, for roads, underground drainage and drinking water across the 29 capital villages, and the tenders for that work are to be finalised on August 27. The capital is not only a set of buildings, Mr. Narayana said, but a question of what it leaves the farmers and residents who provided up their land for it.
August 17, 2026 15:00The Assembly is a sacred platform. Bring your evidence here: NaiduThe Chief Minister turned the DSC argument back on the Opposition in the Assembly, alleging that the young people the protests claim to speak for have not been on the streets at all. Unemployed candidates did not turn up, he said, and daily-wage workers were brought from Odisha to fill the crowds. It is the sharpest charge the government has produced in a fortnight of protests, detentions and arrests across the State, and it goes to the legitimacy of the agitation rather than its substance.
On the recruitment itself, Mr. Naidu said there was nothing left to hide. The answer key, the merit list and the selection list are all public, and every selection can be explained, traced, audited and accounted for. Anyone with proof of irregularity, he said, should bring it to the House.
That was the challenge he kept returning to. The Assembly is a sacred platform, he said, where an allegation can be produced and answered on the evidence, and the Opposition has chosen the street instead. He called it hit-and-run politics: raise the charge outside, avoid the questions inside.
He also cautioned that the attempts to damage the coalition government’s credibility would not work, and that those making the allegations would be exposed the moment they came to the House with anything to show.
August 17, 2026 14:42BAC meets to fix session’s sitting days and agendaThe Business Advisory Committee met under Speaker Chintakayala Ayyanna Patrudu to settle how long the Monsoon session will run and what it will take up. The Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu took part.
Finance and Legislative Affairs Minister Payyavula Keshav, Civil Supplies Minister Nadendla Manohar, Chief Whip G.V. Anjaneyulu and the BJP Legislature Party leader were among those present.
August 17, 2026 14:34No second thoughts on an annual DSC: LokeshThe government will hold a DSC every year, Mr. Lokesh told the House, calling it a commitment to the young that it would not go back on. There would be no second thought about it, he stated.
Three thousand teacher posts have been filled through the DSC this year under the Mega Job Calendar, and about 10,060 in all throughout Group-1, Group-2 and DSC recruitment, he said. The TET examinations have also been held.
Answering the criticism, he stated recruitment had not stopped at any point and was moving as planned.
All the selected teachers will be brought into the system before Ugadi, he remarked. They will be trained for the next academic year, and the government will see to their posting in schools.
August 17, 2026 13:51You toyed with the youth for five years: Atchannaidu to YSRCPA party that spent five years toying with the lives of the young cannot now stand up for the unemployed, Mr. Atchannaidu told the House. To allege irregularities in the DSC while talking about ethics, he stated, was a matter of shame.
August 17, 2026 13:45The axe party has no right to talk about DSC: AtchannaiduMr. Atchannaidu went after the YSRCP by its symbol, calling it “the Golla party”, the axe party, and said a party that had promised a Mega DSC before the last election and then filled not one teacher post in five years had no business criticising the 2025 recruitment.
August 17, 2026 13:40A year on, why the agitation?The recruitment is done, Mr. Lokesh told the House, the teachers trained and already in classrooms, so why raise an agitation a year afterwards? He put the question to Mr. Jagan Mohan Reddy directly and offered to argue it out anywhere, in the House or outside.
On the substance, he said the administration was applying both vertical and horizontal reservation, and doing it in the open.
August 17, 2026 13:35Thirteen DSCs between 1994 and 2019: LokeshMr. Lokesh said the TDP stood for reforms in education, and that 1.8 lakh teachers had been recruited through 13 DSCs during the party’s tenure between 1994 and 2019.
He stated the coalition government of the TDP, the BJP and the Jana Sena had since held a number of recruitment examinations.
August 17, 2026 13:27Debate it here, not at press conferences: Lokesh to JaganMr. Lokesh said the administration was prepared to answer every allegation about the Mega DSC on the floor of the House, and asked Mr. Jagan Mohan Reddy to take up the issue there rather than at press conferences.
He additionally referred to a remark the former Chief Minister had made concerning himself, saying, “He called himself a cockroach.”
August 17, 2026 13:24Notification was built to survive court scrutinyMr. Lokesh said the notification held up as the department had first studied why earlier recruitment notifications had drawn stays. Officials including Vijayarama Raju, then Commissioner of School Education and now CRDA Commissioner, worked on that exercise, and the reasons were analysed using an AI engine before a model notification was drawn up to avoid the same flaws.
He stated he had told the department he would act seriously if the notification failed at any stage of legal scrutiny. The coalition government completed the recruitment, issued offer letters, trained the selected teachers and posted them in schools, he stated, calling it an achievement of the people’s administration.
Published – August 17, 2026 01:19 pm IST
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Andhra Pradesh Assembly LIVE: 11 of 14 DSCs held during my tenure, says Chandrababu Naidu
The session is expected to run for four days, to Thursday; Amaravati works, Polavaram, rainfall deficit and farmers' issues are expected to be addressed
Key points
- Since Varalakshmi Vratam falls on August 21, the Business Advisory Committee, chaired by Speaker Chintakayala Ayyanna Patrudu, has fixed a…
- Chandrababu Naidu in the Assembly during a session | Photo Credit: Special arrangement.
- In the Council, the YSRCP has pressed for a discussion on the Mega DSC recruitment, the issue behind a fortnight…
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The session is expected to run for four days, to Thursday; Amaravati works, Polavaram, rainfall deficit and farmers’ issues are expected to be addressed
Updated – August 17, 2026 05:18 pm IST
The Hindu Bureau
File picture of Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu in the Assembly during a session | Photo Credit: Special arrangement
The Monsoon session of the Andhra Pradesh Legislature opened in disorder on Monday (August 17, 2026). The Assembly began at 9 a.m. and the Legislative Council an hour later, both summoned by Governor S. Abdul Nazeer under Article 174(1). This is the Assembly’s seventh session and the Council’s 50th.
Since Varalakshmi Vratam falls on August 21, the Business Advisory Committee, chaired by Speaker Chintakayala Ayyanna Patrudu, has fixed a four-day session, to Thursday, August 20. BC reservations in local body elections come up on Tuesday and the alleged irregularities in the APPSC Group-I examination on August 19. Nine ordinances will be brought as Bills, and the House will sit through a working lunch.
In the Council, the YSRCP has pressed for a discussion on the Mega DSC recruitment, the issue behind a fortnight of protests, detentions and arrests throughout the State. Amaravati works, the Polavaram project, the rainfall deficit and farmers’ issues are anticipated to take up much of the four days.
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