Clinton’s Hyderabad visit was to ‘attend nature’s call’: Rosaiah

HYDERABAD - Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister K. Rosaiah Tuesday suggested that the Hyderabad visit of then US president Bill Clinton might have been to “attend nature’s call”.

Hitting out at the opposition Telugu Desam Party (TDP) for criticism that he failed to bring US President Barack Obama to Hyderabad while their leader N. Chandrababu Naidu had managed to get Clinton here, Rosaiah made the controversial remark to taunt TDP leaders

“How many times you say that you brought Bill Clinton to Hyderabad? How many minutes he stayed in Hyderabad, particularly at Mahaveer Hospital. Maybe 30 minutes. I think he had come for…,” said the chief minister showing his little finger, indicating that Clinton had come here to urinate.

“After all he is also a human being. He too has to attend nature’s call,” said Rosaiah amid laughter at a news conference.

Rosaiah, known for his witty comments, was reacting to TDP spokesman G. Muddukrishnama Naidu’s remark that he was a weak chief minister as he failed to bring Obama to Andhra Pradesh.

“I am only interested in the people’s development and not in antics like bringing US presidents. Whenever a foreign dignitary like US president visits India, it is the Indian government which in consultation with the concerned country decides the places which he will visit during his stay in the country,” Rosaiah said.

“I am not like Chandrababu Naidu to run around to bring US presidents. I am chief minister of a state and not a man of his stature to meet personalities like Bill Clinton, Tony Blair and Kofi Annan to discuss international politics,” Rosaiah said in a sarcastic tone.

Clinton had visited Hyderabad in 2000 when Chandrababu Naidu was the chief minister. The then US president had visited Mahaveer Hospital here to meet tuberculosis patients.

Blair, then the British prime minister, and Annan, the then United Nations general secretary, had also visited Andhra Pradesh during Naidu’s tenure.