Telangana IT and Industries Minister KT Rama Rao on Wednesday, 7 June, targeted the Congress for seeking support from the people in the Assembly elections later this year.
He said the party was unmindful of the fact that its performance in the neighbouring state of Chhattisgarh was very poor by any standard.
Interestingly, the minister, while speaking at a public meeting in Mulugu on the occasion of Water Day — the theme for Wednesday — in the 21-day decennial celebrations of Telangana Formation Day, carefully avoided attacking the BJP.
This, despite BJP-bashing being the hallmark of his speeches all along.
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Silent on BJP
KTR seemed to have followed in the footsteps of his father — Telangana Chief Minister and BRS chief K Chandrashekar Rao — to give a breather to pouncing on the saffron party, for reasons best known to themselves.
The chief minister, after targeting the BJP late last month for bringing an ordinance allowing the Centre to have a hold on the All India Service officers working in Delhi, has remained silent.
He has addressed two public meetings since then — one at Machnerial and the other at Nagarkurnool. In both places, he steered clear of attacking the BJP or explaining his mission of ushering in a “Kisan Sarkar” — a government for farmers — in Delhi.
In his address at Mulugu, KT Rama Rao was, however, very vituperative in his attack on the Congress for ignoring the interests of the people while it was in power in the state in the past, when it was a part of Andhra Pradesh.
He said: “The Congress, which is in power in Chhattisgarh, our neighbouring state, cannot supply piped drinking water to the people, but its leaders make lofty professions in Telangana that they would bring down the moon and present it to the people on Earth.”
Highlighting differences
He said that in Telangana, as also in Chhattisgarh, farmers cultivate paddy.
“Do you know how much crop the government there buys from farmers? It is a maximum of 12 quintals, regardless of how much the farmer produces. The farmers are being forced to resort to distress sale of their produce to the mills,” he claimed.
But, he said, they posed questions to the government as to when it was going to procure the entire production from the farmers.
“They demand reasons for the delay in procurement. But they conveniently gloss over the fact that the BRS government in Telangana pays ₹10,000 per acre to farmers as a crop investment subsidy. In Chhattisgarh, the government does not pay even ₹2,000 per acre,” he said.
He also sought to know if there was an uninterrupted power supply in Chhattisgarh, like in Telangana.
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Appeal to farmers
He appealed to farmers to support the BRS as it always cared for them and kept their interests uppermost in its mind.
“They are also asking us why we were celebrating the decennial celebrations but what they should know is that we have enough reasons and it is our responsibility to explain to them the achievements of the BRS government,” Rama Rao said.
The minister said that though it was an Opposition party MLA who is representing Mulugu, yet the government is not showing any discrimination.
He said it was the BRS government which had converted 3,146 thandas (hutments) into gram panchayats.
“Now it is the tribals who rule their villages. They could have their own sarpanch now,” he said.
