Opposition parties and the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) engaged themselves in a bitter war of words on Monday, a day after the Pragathi Nivedana Sabha organised by the latter, over the impact, or its lack, of the public meeting held with “much publicity glitz and fanfare”.
Opposition Congress, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Telugu Desam Party (TDP) have availed the opportunity to score a political point or two over the TRS, while the ruling party tried to retort relatively mildly. The Opposition termed the public meeting a big failure and a “flop show” in one voice in spite of the ruling party’s all out efforts, but TRS claimed it a “big success”.
Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) president N. Uttam Kumar Reddy questioned the very rationale of organising the public meeting by the ruling party by flaunting all its might as Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao did not even refer to some major poll promises made prior to 2014 general elections and later during the GHMC elections. He pointed out Mr. Rao’s silence on promises such as giving one lakh jobs, distribution of three acres of land to every landless Dalit family and construction of double-bedroom houses, among others.
Going a step further, another vocal Congress leader A. Revanth Reddy alleged that the TRS government’s announcement on allotment of land for construction of a memorial for TDP leader N. Harikrishna, who was a strong opponent of statehood to Telangana, was nothing but heaping insult on all those who had sacrificed for the cause of Telangana.
Stating that Sunday’s public meeting was a beginning to the end of the ‘anti-people’ rule of the TRS, former minister D.K. Aruna sought to know what Mr. Chandrasekhar Rao’s message to people of Telangana from the public meeting was. “Poor response to the ruling party’s meeting is an ample indication that the era of TRS in Telangana is nearing its end,” she observed.
President of the TDP in Telangana L. Ramana and former minister R. Chandrasekhar Reddy said the absence of mention of several promises made by the ruling party at the public meeting was an indication that it had failed to keep them but was still trying to come back to power by deceiving people again.
Poor attendance of people at the meeting was also an indication of contempt against the TRS government, they said.
Meanwhile, TRS leaders T. Srinivas Yadav, B. Suman and others claimed that the public meeting was a big success but Congress leaders were left disappointed on account of not being targeted by the Chief Minister during his speech at the event. “As is in the name, the Chief Minister devoted most of the time of his speech to explain the good work done by the government in the last four years”.