KCR calls regional leaders to TRS event
HYDERABAD: Stepping up his efforts to launch a federal front as a third alternative to the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) president and chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao has invited heads of several regional parties to Hyderabad on May 10 for the launch of Rythu Bandhu, his government’s populist scheme.
KCR, as the chief minister is popularly known, has extended invitations to Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) working president MK Stalin and MP Kanimozhi, Trinamool Congress (TMC) chief and West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, Biju Janata Dal (BJD) president and Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik, Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) leader Hemanth Soren and Samajwadi Party (SP) leader Akhilesh Yadav. “They would attend the launch of Rythu Bandhu, one of the prestigious programmes of the chief minister, which has attracted nation-wide attention. Invitations are being extended to other regional party heads, too,” a spokesman in the chief minister’s office said.
Under the Rythu Bandhu scheme, each of around 5.8 million farmers would get ₹4,000 per acre during Kharif as well as Rabi seasons. The agriculture department has identified nearly 14.21 million acres of cultivable land and the total expenditure on the Rythu Bandhu scheme would come to around ₹5,685 crore per season. The government made a budgetary allocation of ₹12,000 crore for the scheme this year.
The invitation is aimed at consolidating the TRS chief’s efforts to form the federal front. KCR had already met Banerjee, Soren, former Chhattisgarh chief minister Ajit Jogi and Janata Dal (S) president Deve Gowda over the last month. On Sunday and Monday, KCR spent two days in Chennai, meeting DMK patriarch M Karunanidhi, besides holding talks with Stalin, TR Balu, A Raja and Kanimozhi to give a concrete shape to the third front.
Meanwhile, SP leader Akhilesh Yadav will also come to Hyderabad on Wednesday to work out the modalities of the proposed front.
Apart from Rythu Bandhu scheme, KCR has also asked the heads of regional parties to pay a visit to his flagship programmes of Mission Bhagiratha (providing drinking water to every household) and Kaleshwaram irrigation scheme, said to be the biggest lift irrigation scheme in the country. “The objective of these invitations is to give national focus not only to Telangana’s developmental programmes, but also to KCR, who is aiming to emerge as a national leader rather than being called a regional leader,” a TRS leader said on condition of anonymity.