Telangana IT and Industries Minister K T Rama Rao today ridiculed BJP leader and former minister Etala Rajender for "deluding" himself into thinking that he had left the TRS to protect his self-respect.
Speaking to the media, the minister opened up about Rajender's exit from the ruling party, and thundered, "It is not self-respect that Etala is protecting. What he is doing is more akin to self-deception. I want to ask him exactly what injustice was meted out to him by the TRS high command. He has levelled various vague charges against our government and the party, claiming that he had been insulted by both on several occasions. However, nobody still knows exactly what was done to him. The leader should come clean and tell us how we have wronged him and how we have attacked his self-respect."
"If Etala was really not receiving any respect from his party colleagues in the TRS, why exactly did he continue his association with us for five long years? Despite the allegations he made against our party, Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao did not expel him from the TRS. I personally tried to ensure till the very end that Etala stayed on," he continued.
Talking about the BJP leader's role in the TRS government, KTR claimed, "Though Etala himself was a minister, he often raised objections against the decisions made by the state Cabinet. Despite this, he was allowed to remain in the government for five years. Today he is making unfair remarks about the welfare and developmental schemes introduced by our government. He is also making various unacceptable remarks about the CM. Is this right?"
The TRS bigwig then hit out at state BJP head Bandi Sanjay Kumar for the latter's "anti-TRS" comments and
upcoming padayatra.
Denying all the allegations that Kumar had levelled against the TRS regime, he said that contrary to the BJP leader's remarks, the government had not been unjust to the people of Telangana, and asked, "How have the people of the state been treated unjustly by our government? What is Bandi Sanjay referring to? And why has he decided to embark on a padayatra? He should provide a clear explanation for his decision."
He also spoke about the upcoming Huzurabad by-election, and said that the election would be fought between various parties and the people of the constituency, and not between individual persons.
Addressing the state's ongoing water feud with neighbouring Andhra Pradesh, the minister maintained that Telangana would surely get its rightful share of water from the Krishna basin, and would continue to generate hydro-power as per the stipulated norms.