Congress’ Telangana CM hopefuls lobby with ‘kingmaker’ Chandrababu
Asked about his meeting with Naidu on Monday, Jana Reddy told The Sunday Guardian that he had a long-time friendship with the CM and that he just wanted to seek his good wishes or blessings for the win of the Maha Kutami in Telangana. Interestingly, some Congress leaders who camped in Delhi gave their bio-data to Naidu’s personal assistants.
In Telangana, a Congress-led grand alliance including TDP, Telangana Jana Samithi (TJS) and CPI is contesting against the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS), while the BJP is fighting on its own. It is becoming clear that CM Naidu, who was cut up with the BJP and left the NDA five months ago, is the architect of this Maha Kutami and is playing a major role in its seat adjustments.
Naidu on Saturday told a party senior leaders’ meeting in Amaravati that he was instrumental in forming the Maha Kutami in Telangana to teach TRS’ Telangana Chief Minister, K. Chandrasekhar Rao (KCR) a lesson for refusing to have a tie-up with the TDP. “BJP on its own announced a year ago that it won’t have any tie up with us (TDP) in Telangana and TRS too declined to join us,” Naidu reminded his leaders. “In such a situation, it was my responsibility to save and run my party (TDP) in Telangana. So to teach both of them a lesson (BJP and TRS), I have decided to go with the Congress and form a Maha Kutami against them. After the income-tax raids on our party leaders in Andhra, I have also decided to launch an anti-BJP front at the national level. No one should underestimate me,” said Naidu.
Naidu was also responsible for the TDP seeking to contest only 14 out of Telangana’s 119 seats, in spite of the local unit of the party wanting to contest 31 seats. “Our leader (Naidu) has clearly told us not to ask for more seats and complicate the seat sharing talks. He told us to confine to a minimum number of seats, to whatever the Congress offers us,” said a TDP leader from Telangana.
Senior TRS minister T. Harish Rao alleged that Naidu was “Villain Number 1 of Telangana”. “Chandrababu Naidu has planned to pump in around Rs 500 crore for the win of the Maha Kutami and if they win, he will remote control the next government,” alleged Rao.
However, Naidu refuted the charge and said that those who were attacking him must know that “I cannot become the CM of Telangana, I confine myself to Andhra. TRS leaders are scared of Maha Kutami and attacking me to exploit the sentiments.” TDP’s Telangana president L. Ramana rejected the charge of Naidu pumping in Rs 500 crore for the Kutami candidates. The Narendra Modi-led BJP government has built about 1.25 crore houses in the last about four years for the people living in rural areas, with an average of 27.86 lakh houses per year.
According to government figures, the UPA-II government constructed 89.65 lakh houses as part of the Indira Awas Yojana (IAY) in their last four years from 2010-11 to 2013-14. In contrast, the current NDA government constructed 111.44 lakh houses in the first four years between 2014-15 and 2017-18 under Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (Rural). If the number of houses constructed in the first half of the current year are taken into account, it could be about 1.25 crore, said an official.
Official figures suggest that the number of houses constructed has seen an increasing trend over the years. During the NDA-I government headed by Atal Bihari Vajpayee, an average of 11.68 lakh houses were built per year. This average was 17.39 lakh under UPA-I and 24.7 lakh under UPAII. Under the Modi government, this average has gone