Will lay foundation of a new Telangana: Rahul
Accuses TRS of being hand in glove with the BJP government at the Centre
HYDERABAD: Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Saturday vowed to build 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 the election rallies at Bhainsa in Nirmal district and later at Kamareddy district headquarters, Rahul accused Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) president K Chandrasekhar Rao of miserably failing the people of Telangana.
“...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... But what they had witnessed in the last four years was a disastrous performance of the TRS government,” he said.
He alleged “...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... More than 4,000 farmers had committed suicide in the last four years.”
Rahul Gandhi 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 BR Ambedkar from the Pranahitachevella project and renamed it as Kaleshwaram. He relocated it in the name of redesigning and escalated the cost from ₹38,000 crore to ₹1 lakh crore, only to loot crores of rupees from the contractors,” he said.
The Congress president also accused the TRS government of being hand in glove with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government at the Centre. “KCR has supported every decision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whether it was demonetisation or GST... By supporting KCR, the Majlis-e-ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM) is also indirectly supporting the Modi government,” Rahul Gandhi alleged.
Gandhi alleged, “When the Congress party strongly resisted the move (doing away with the Land Acquisition Act, 2013), the Modi government allowed the states to make their own land acquisition acts...the KCR government enacted its own land act seeking to forcibly acquire the land from farmers without paying proper compensation.”
He said only the Congress party 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.”
Describing Rahul Gandhi’s election rallies as “stand-up comedy shows,” Telangana BJP official spokesman Krishna Sagar Rao said there were absolutely no takers for his allegations against the Narendra 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 was in power in 19 states... He has no moral right to talk about the corruption in the TRS government, as the Congress party itself was involved in several scams. Only the BJP has the right to attack the TRS government... ,” Rao said.
TRS strongly condemned the allegations of Rahul on dropping of Ambedkar’s name from the irrigation project.
“The BR Ambedkar Pranahita-chevella project has not been shelved... It will be built as it is,” TRS MP B Vinod said.
He 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.
He further said farmers’ suicides were more in the Congressruled 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 defended the TRS government in his tweet. “When Rosaiah was chief minister in 2010, Hyderabad saw curfews and riots. In the last 4 years, there hasn’t been a single riot.”