No place for Andhra Pradesh sympathisers in Telangana: State minister T Harish Rao

SANGAREDDY/HYDERABAD: Taking a potshot at YSR Telangana Party President YS Sharmila, Finance Minister T Harish Rao said that the descendants of YS Rajasekhara Reddy, who had once mocked the people of Telangana by comparing them to cigarettes and beedis, would find no place in the State.

Several Congress leaders and activists from Sangareddy constituency joined the TRS in the presence of the Minister at Sadashivpet on Saturday. During the meeting, Harish lashed out at Sharmila and the Congress, and asked his supporters if it was not YSR who prevented Telangana from becoming a reality.

He said that the late Rajasekhara Reddy had sent them out of the Assembly whenever they spoke about Telangana, and added that opportunists and Andhra sympathaisers would have no place in the State.

Harish said that people from other parties were joining the TRS due to their confidence in Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao. He said that electing a Congress government would mean shortage of drinking water, fertilisers and an increase in power cuts. The Minister also claimed that what the Congress could not do in 70 years, the TRS did in just seven years.

He also said that unlike the Congress government, which only gave one medical college in Adilabad, the TRS had set up medical and nursing colleges in Sangareddy. He said that Congress leaders were always fighting for power, and that now that they do not even have the status of an Opposition opposition, they were just day-dreaming of coming to power.

Harish criticized local MLA Jayaprakash Reddy for being more at Gandhi Bhavan and less among the people. He said that when Chandrababu Naidu brokered an alliance with the Congress in the last election, the people of Telangana evicted them to the outskirts of the State. He added that the State was formed on the foundation of sacrifice. He said plans were being prepared to develop schools in the State at the cost of Rs 4000 crore.

Sharmila only wants to check on lands her father encroached: BJP

BJP State vice president NVSS Prabhakar said that Mariamma’s death has reminded the State of the need for empowerment of SCs, and the suicide of unemployed youth of the need to issue employment notifications. He said that announcing 50,000 jobs without a rationale was merely an eyewash and demanded recruitments for all existing government vacancies.

Prabhakar said that KCR only focused on increasing the FRBM limit in the letters he jotted out to the Centre. He also challenged the CM to an open debate.

Hitting out at YS Sharmila, Prabhakar said that the YSR Telangana Party chief had launched a party to check the lands which were "encroached" by her father. "Sharmila entered Telangana politics to check Bayyaram lands and mines and other valuable lands encroached by her father," he said.