Shabbir Ali accused the TRS and the BJP of jointly enacting dramas of investigations, summons, notices and arrests to distract the people from the real issues.
Senior Congress leader and former minister Mohammed Ali Shabbir accused the TRS and the BJP of jointly enacting dramas of investigations, summons, notices and arrests to distract the people's attention from the real issues plaguing the State.
Addressing mediapersons at Gandhi Bhavan, Shabbir Ali asked in what way the sale and purchase of TRS MLAs affected the common people.
"CM K Chandrashekar Rao engineered 47 defections in his first term and 14 in the second. A total of 4 MPs, 25 MLAs and 18 MLCs from the Congress and other parties were made to defect to the TRS during 2014-18, and 12 Congress MLAs and 2 TDP MLAs defected to the TRS after 2018. Why did KCR not speak about ethics, morals and democracy while engineering those defections?" he asked.
Shabbir Ali also pointed out that three of the four MLAs who the BJP allegedly tried to purchase, originally belonged to the Congress.
"KCR purchased Congress and TDP MLAs at a cost known only to him and those MLAs. Neither the people of those constituencies nor the common people of Telangana benefited from those sales. It doesn't matter to the common people if the BJP purchases four or 40 MLAs. People know very well that the politics of both the BJP and the TRS are confined to defections and horse-trading," he alleged.
The Congress leader said that the TRS and the BJP enacted the drama of the farmhouse case for about 10-15 days, and now that the people were starting to tire of it, had came up with another drama involving TRS MLC Kavitha to keep them distracted. Since KCR's daughter's name would bring more media attention, the BJP and the TRS were engaging in politics around Kavitha, he alleged.
"Kavitha is accused of corruption in the Delhi liquor scam. In what way will the common people gain or lose if the CBI or the ED arrests Kavitha? If Central agencies have sufficient evidence, then they should arrest Kavitha. If she is not involved, she should prove her innocence in court. Instead of dealing with the matter legally, the TRS and the BJP are engaging in publicity stunts over the issue," he said.
Shabbir Ali added that the BJP government had targeted Congress leaders in the "baseless and fake case" of the National Herald. The BJP government used the Enforcement Directorate to target National Herald, a newspaper which had played a great role in the freedom movement, and summon senior Congress leaders including Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and others for interrogations. "We appeared before the ED and explained that we had done nothing wrong. The TRS leaders should also do the same if they are innocent," he said.
The Congress leader also asked why BJP leader B L Santosh was afraid of facing a probe by the Special Investigation Team in the poachgate case. If Santosh had played no role in the alleged poaching episode he should appear before the SIT and explain, Shabbir Ali said. Santosh's desperate attempts to avoid probe strengthened the suspicion that he might be involved, Shabbir Ali alleged.
"Tellingly, neither the TRS nor the BJP are talking about the people's issues. Why are both parties silent on rising inflation? The prices of crude oil have gone down and the union government can bring down the prices by at least 10-15 rupees per litre. But neither the BJP nor the TRS governments are doing anything to reduce the prices," he said.
Shabbir Ali also said that PM Modi had promised 2 crore jobs every year while CM KCR had promised one job for every household. But both were now silent about the problem of rising unemployment, he said.
He also said that no review had been held on the just-concluded Kharif season. Further, the Agricultural Action Plan had not been declared for the Rabi season. No advisory had been issued to the farmers on the crops to be grown this season. And the Chief Minister had not conducted a single meeting to check whether or not the farmers had sufficient and better seeds, fertilizers and other facilities. Also, the TRS government had not waived off crop loans up to Rs. 1 lakh as it had promised, and had also failed to direct the banks to release fresh loans to the farmers for the Rabi season, he said.
Shabbir Ali added that the private medical and engineering colleges had increased their fees, putting a huge burden on thousands of parents and students across Telangana. In addition, the quality of education in universities and their rankings had come down due to a shortage of funds and staff. The law & order situation was also in extremely bad shape with incidents of rapes and murders being reported almost every day, he alleged.
He also alleged that poor Muslims were being denied a proper share in the weaker section housing program. He said that the previous Congress government had reserved 12% of housing units in the urban areas and 9% in the rural areas for the minorities. However, this rule was not being applied anywhere in Telangana. The TRS government had also betrayed the Muslims on the promise of giving a 12% quota, and was now appearing to target even the existing 4% Muslim reservation implemented by the previous Congress government. He said that the State government was yet to issue a proper clarification on whether or not the Muslim quota in Telangana had been reduced from 4% to 3%.
"The minorities should launch an agitation to protect their rights and share. If the community remains idle, then the TRS government will take away everything given by the previous Congress government," he said.
"The blame game between TRS and BJP is not going to help the people. Both the governments have made the common people's lives miserable," he added, and appealed to the people to gherao TRS and BJP leaders whenever the latter visited their areas in either cities or villages.
Shabbir Ali said that the Congress was planning a series of agitations on public issues. He said that massive dharnas had been planned for 5th December on farmers' issues, and issues related to the jobless youth and housing would be taken up after that.