Not Congress, Democracy Losing Elections In Telangana: Congress

Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) President & Nalgonda MP N Uttam Kumar Reddy alleged that the TRS had won the municipal elections using money and liquor, and by misusing the official machinery.

He also alleged that the TRS, the BJP and the MIM had conspired to damage the Congress in the recent municipal elections.

Speaking after hoisting the national flag at party headquarters Gandhi Bhavan on the occasion of the 71st Republic Day on Sunday, Reddy said that despite all the conspiracies and obstacles, however, the Congress had performed better than in the previous elections. He said that the party had won nearly 25% of the municipalities in the state, and that the vote share of the party in the municipal elections had increased from that in the Lok Sabha elections of 2019.

He also claimed that there had been a significant increase in the Congress' vote share from the Assembly elections to the Lok Sabha elections, and then from the Panchayat Raj elections to now the municipal elections. Therefore the Congress would certainly come to power in the next Assembly elections, he said.

Reddy alleged that the TRS was winning elections using money power and liquor. He claimed that the TRS had spent up to Rs. 30,000 per vote to win the civic elections. And despite using money and liquor to influence the voters, Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao was calling it a people's mandate, he said.

Calling this as a dangerous trend for democracy, he called upon the intellectuals and other members in the society to launch a movement to save democracy in Telangana. He said that democracy could not be restored unless elections were held in a free, fair and transparent manner.

Belabouring the point, he said that it was not the Congress that was losing the elections in Telangana, but democracy and the Constitution. Pointing to practices like engineering defections of elected representatives of the opposition parties into the ruling party; kidnapping of political leaders; extreme usage of liquor, money and official position; curbing protests against wrong policies; house arrests; implications in false cases; and using the police to harass and terrorise political opponents had become common in Telangana, he said. Such practices had raised serious doubts on the very survival of democracy in Telangana, he lamented.

Responding to KCR's announcement that the Telangana Assembly too would pass an anti-CAA resolution, he said that KCR could not be trusted as he kept changing his stance and never honoured his own words. He also said that the TRS and the BJP had a secret understanding in Telangana - for example, the BJP leaders only gave media statements alleging corruption and embezzlement of funds by the TRS leaders, but never made a request to their own party's government at the Centre to order a CBI probe against KCR or other TRS leaders, he said.