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Rahul Gandhi vows to bring back glory to Telangana, attacks TRS, BJP
Addressing election rallies at Bhainsa in Nirmal district and at Kamareddy, Rahul Gandhi accused TRS president K Chandrasekhar Rao of failing the people who had voted for his party in 2014 with a lot of hopes.
Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Saturday vowed to herald a new Telangana that would reflect the dreams and aspirations of all sections of people, if his party is voted to power in the upcoming assembly elections.
Addressing election rallies at Bhainsa in Nirmal district and at Kamareddy district headquarters, Gandhi accused Telangana Rashtra Samithi president K Chandrasekhar Rao of failing the people who had voted for his party in 2014 with a lot of hopes.
“Four and a half years ago, the people of Telangana had a dream of a new government in the new state that would supply water to the parched lands, generate wealth that would help develop the state on all fronts and provide employment opportunities to every youth. These were the three issues that formed the basis for the struggle for separate Telangana state. But what they had witnessed in the last four years was a disastrous performance of the TRS government,” he said.
The Congress president alleged that the only people who benefitted from the Telangana formation were the family members of KCR.
“When the weaker sections were expecting the government to fulfil its promise of providing housing for them, KCR constructed a palace for himself at a cost of ₹300 crore. When farmers fought for remunerative prices for their produce, he got them arrested and hand-cuffed. More than 4,000 farmers have committed suicide in the last four years,” he said.
He accused KCR of indulging in massive corruption in the name of redesigning the irrigation projects already taken up by the previous Congress regime.
“He dumped the name of B R Ambedkar from the Pranahita-Chevella project on Godavari river, relocated it to other location in the name of redesigning and escalated the cost from the original ₹38,000 crore to ₹1 lakh crore on the project which was renamed as Kaleshwaram, only to loot crores of rupees,” he said.
Stating that the KCR government had pushed the state into a debt trap by going in for massive borrowings to the tune of ₹2 lakh crore, Rahul said that because of the faulty economic policies of the TRS chief, there was a debt burden of ₹70,000 on every individual in the state.
The Congress president also accused the TRS government of being hand in glove with the BJP government at the Centre. “KCR has supported every decision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whether it was demonetisation or GST or other policy decisions. By supporting KCR, the Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM) is also indirectly supporting the Modi government,” he alleged.
Rahul reminded the people that the Modi government had tried to do away with the Land Acquisition Act 2013 and also tribal land laws, brought in by the previous UPA government which had made land acquisition from famers and tribals difficult without their consent.
“When the Congress strongly resisted the move, the Modi government allowed the states to make their own land acquisition laws. In Telangana, the KCR government enacted its own land act seeking to forcibly acquire the land from farmers without paying proper compensation,” he alleged.
He said only Congress represented all sections of people, including Dalits, Adivasis, OBCs, women and minorities. “We will restore the land rights of Adivasis and the farmers. We will realise your dream of a new Telangana, wherein all sections of people live happily. Let us have a new beginning under the Congress regime,” Rahul said.
Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee president N Uttam Kumar Reddy, working presidents M Bhatti Vikramarka and A Revanth Reddy, former Union minister S Jaipal Reddy and others spoke at the meetings.
Describing Rahul’s election rallies in Telangana as “stand-up comedy shows”, Telangana BJP spokesman Krishna Sagar Rao said there were absolutely no takers in any part of the country for his allegations against the Modi government on any issue, whether it is Rafale deal or the land acquisition act.
“Rahul has no locus standi to speak against the BJP, which is in power in 19 states. Wherever he is going, he is harping on Rafael deal, hoping that it would fetch political mileage to the Congress,” Rao said.
TRS strongly condemned Rahul’s allegations on dropping Ambedkar’s name from the irrigation project on Godavari river. “The B R Ambedkar Pranahita Chevella project has not been shelved at all. It will be built as it is,” TRS MP B Vinod said and alleged that it was during the Congress regime that there was a massive corruption in the irrigation projects.
On Rahul’s allegations on the land acquisition act, Vinod said the state government had only made some changes as per the local requirements and said that farmer suicides were more in Congress-ruled states. “In fact, the number of suicides of have come down during the TRS regime,” he said.
All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen president Asaduddin Owaisi could not be reached for his comment, but in his tweet on Saturday evening, he defended the TRS government. “When K Rosaiah was chief minister in 2010, Hyderabad saw curfews and riots. In the last four years, there hasn’t been a single riot...,” Owaisi said.
