Modi, Rahul Gandhi Must Prove Allegations: KCR

Ahead of the Telangana Assembly elections a week away, TRS president and caretaker Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao today intensified his attack on the Congress by calling Rahul Gandhi a joker, and a liar who was spreading falsehoods against the TRS government.

He claimed that Prime Minister Narendra Modi too was indulging in false propaganda, and asked both Gandhi and Modi to prove their charges against his party and government.

Addressing public meetings at Yellandu, Mulugu, Bhadradri Kothagudem and other places, KCR took umbrage to Rahul Gandhi's comment that the TRS regime had redesigned all the irrigation projects only for commissions. Stating that projects were redesigned to get more water, the TRS president said, "It is the Congress that is accustomed to taking commissions, promoting corruption and encouraging scams. Modi, Amit Shah and Rahul Gandhi, who are indulging in a misinformation campaign in Telangana, have proved that there are no values in national politics. I challenge the BJP and Congress leaders to prove their baseless allegations."

Speaking development, KCR promised to get a steel factory constructed at Bayyaram by pushing the Centre, and said that if the Centre did not budge, the state government itself would take over the mining activity in Singareni and launch the steel factory, much to the delight of the gathering.

"The Centre has been continuously ignoring our demand for a steel factory at Bayyaram. We are ready to take the Centre's share (51%) in the Singareni Collieries and set up our own steel factory at Bayyaram. This will not only increase the steel production but will also provide a lot of employment opportunities to the youth of Telangana," KCR said.

He also attributed the desertification of the old Khammam district, through which the Godavari river flowed, to deliberate attempts by successive united AP governments. "We will make ample use of the Godavari waters and irrigate every inch of the land in north Telangana," the TRS chief announced.

Wooing the people of the tribal areas, KCR vowed to provide them connectivity, power supply, drinking water and other facilities. He also promised to provide 12% reservations to the STs, resolve the disputes in the forests and cultivated lands, and make Mulugu a district by January 26.

He also announced that his party would increase the various pensions and give an unemployment allowance to the youth in Telangana if voted into power again.

The commitment of his party to the people of the state was borne out by all the schemes that had been launched in the past four-and-a-half years, including Kalyana Lakshmi, Rythu Bandhu, Rythu Bhima and sheep distribution among others, and the same commitment would continue if the TRS was voted back to power, he promised.

The caretaker CM then launched into a diatribe against his main rival, the Congress. He said that the Telangana Congress leaders had no spinal cord and needed to go to Delhi for everything, and that voting for the Congress therefore meant giving control of Telangana to New Delhi.

The Congress was also unsympathetic to the Telangana people, he said - for example, when the Nagarjuna Sagar dam was built, the then united AP government of the Congress had deceived Telangana by opposing a canal towards Yellendu and taking away the waters to the Andhra region, he recalled. Then, the last Chief Minister of united AP, N Kiran Kumar Reddy, had ridiculed the Telangana leaders by saying that they lacked the knowledge required to rule, and that darkness and gloom would prevail if Telangana was accorded statehood.

"However, we have ensured round-the-clock power supply in Telangana from nearly day one by coming to an agreement with other states for power," he said.

He appealed to the people to ensure that the TRS candidates, including caretaker minister Chandulal and others, won by a margin of at least one lakh votes in the upcoming elections, and expressed confidence that the TRS would be voted back with a huge majority and win 106 Assembly seats.