Caretaker Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao went all out against the Congress and Telugu Desam, particularly the latter party’s president N. Chandrababu Naidu, in deriding their alliance for the coming elections.
Calling Mr. Naidu names, Mr. Rao also sought to put to shame the Congress for forging alliance with the TDP. “If they (Congress) are so desperate, I would have conceded six seats to them. But was it justified to mortgage the interests of Telangana to Amaravathi, the capital of Andhra Pradesh?”
He went on to describe the alliance as unholy because Mr. Naidu had snatched the Lower Sileru project from Telangana by merging seven mandals of Khammam with Andhra Pradesh. Mr. Rao was addressing a mammoth public meeting of TRS on Government Giriraj College ground here on Wednesday. Mr. Rao urged the people of Telangana to totally eliminate both the parties with their votes in elections.“I have dissolved the Assembly to seek your blessings once again to teach a lesson to Congress leaders who have been stalling development with court cases and baseless allegations. Your decision in favour of TRS will give me the strength to seal the mouths of Congress leaders,”.
Laced with anecdotes, he focused his criticism on Congress and TDP and said that Congress leaders were “breathless” after the dissolution of Assembly.
Therefore, they filed cases against the dissolution. TRS never hankered for posts as it threw them away for the asking, he said and added that the dissolution of the Assembly at the cost of losing nine months of power was aimed at providing a stable government.
The TRS chief said that no State government in the country other than Telangana was providing 24-hour uninterrupted free power to the farm sector, farm investment and ₹5 lakh life insurance to farmers’ families. “Since we have not resorted to corrupt practices all these four years, the State GDP has constantly been at 17.14% and in the last one year it has gone up to 19.83%. Is it possible if we are corrupt,” he asked amidst resounding applause. Mr. Chandrasekhar Rao said that the main objective of the TRS government was to provide water for irrigation to every acre from Godavari and Krishna rivers and also drinking water under Mission Bhagiratha to every household.
Listing out all the schemes introduced by the TRS regime, he said that as many as 452 schemes were implemented during the four-and-a- half years. “We not only kept the promises made in the manifesto but also executed measures that were not included in it”, he said while stating that social security benefits to old people and beedi workers would be increased. Not sparing the BJP, he made critical comments against its promise to offer ₹5,000 rent to tenant households.
Minister P.Srinivas Reddy, MP K. Kavitha and former Assembly Speaker K.R. Suresh Reddy also spoke.