KCR Shattered Telangana's Dreams, Must Retire: Rahul Gandhi

Addressing a massive public meeting in the Bhupalapalli Assembly constituency, Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Thursday said that the aspirations and dreams of the Telangana people were shattered due to the "misrule" of K Chandrashekar Rao.

Speaking with specific emphasis on tribals, he alleged that the KCR government did not implement the Tribal Protection Act (Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006) introduced by the previous UPA government that was meant to protect the rights of the tribal people of the country over water, forest and lands, and promised to implement the Forest Rights Protection Act if the Congress-led Praja Front came to power, and to set up a tribal university in the state.

Gandhi also criticized Prime Minister Narendra Modi for denying rights and protection to the tribals and the farmers.

"Modi at the Centre and KCR in the state diluted the laws meant for the protection of the rights of the tribals. As a result, tribal lands are being snatched away from them and are being given to industrialists without proper compensation," Gandhi said.

Gandhi then tried to woo the Singareni Collieries workers by alleging that KCR had cheated all the company employees who had taken part in the separate statehood agitation, and promised them that their company would not be privatized. He also promised to reinstate all the dismissed employees of the company.

Gandhi also alleged that KCR had "looted" the public money in the name of redesigning the irrigation projects, and by increasing the budget of Mission Bhagiratha from the initially proposed Rs 40,000 crores to Rs 90,000 crores.

Slamming KCR for not failing to fulfill the promise of building 2 lakh free double bedroom houses, Gandhi said that it was time for the TRS chief to take rest in his "Rs 300 crore" house (Pragathi Bhavan, the CM's camp office) and let the Congress-led coalition work for the state. He promised to give Rs 5 lakhs to eligible families to build their own houses if they had plots of land.