Shabbir Ali Accuses KCR Of Ruining Lives Of Youth

Congress leader and former Minister Mohammad Ali Shabbir today accused Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao of "ruining" the lives and career prospects of lakhs of unemployed youth in the state.

Speaking at a public meeting in Nidamanoor mandal's Thummadam village as part of the Congress' campaign for the upcoming Nagarjuna Sagar Assembly by-election, the leader first flayed the TRS government for causing the death of an unemployed youth from Warangal, B Sunil Naik.

"The policy missteps of the TRS government have pushed the jobless youth into depression. Some are even resorting to the extreme measures, like suicide, as a result. Telangana is a state that became a reality due to the sacrifices made by the youth and the students of the region. Congress President Sonia Gandhi granted statehood to Telangana as she wanted to stop the youth from taking their own lives. She wanted the youth to have a good future, jobs and control over all the resources of the new state. However, CM KCR has usurped all the resources of our state, and has started treating the state as his personal jagir (fiefdom). In an act of utter shamelessness, the CM has appointed 40 of his relatives including his son, daughter, son-in-law, and nephew, to various important posts in the state administration. The KCR family should be called 'Ali Baba Aur Chalis Chor'," he fumed.

Shabbir Ali then highlighted the crucial role played by K Jana Reddy, the Congress' candidate for the by-election, in the formation of Telangana, and said, "Jana Reddy was offered the post of Chief Minister in undivided Andhra Pradesh. He not only refused the offer but pressurised the Congress-led UPA Government to grant statehood to Telangana instead. Meanwhile, he played a key role in keeping the Telangana agitation going. In fact, he was instrumental in the formation of the Joint Action Committee, and in keeping it apolitical so as to involve all sections of society in our historic struggle for statehood. Without Jana Reddy, the JAC and a new state would both have remained impossibilities."

The former minister then ridiculed the leaders of the TRS for accusing Jana Reddy of not bringing development to Nagarjuna Sagar.

"It is ridiculous that leaders like Home Minister Mohhamad Mahmood Ali, who have never even contested in a councillor election, are questioning Jana Reddy regrading his role in developing Nagarjuna Sagar. It is not a joke to get elected from a constituency seven times. Whatever development has taken place in the region is because of Jana Reddy's hard work. That is why the people of the constituency have endorsed him repeatedly," he asserted.

"The TRS ministers and leaders campaigning in Nagarjuna Sagar should, therefore, not ask rabble-rousing questions. Instead, they should come up with the answers to existing developmental hiccups. They should reveal the deadline by which the government will finally fill all 1.91 lakh vacancies in state's government departments. It is up to the youth to question the pink party on the non-fulfilment of the many promise it has made in its two terms. Did it not promise to introduce a monthly unemployment allowance of Rs 3,016? I wonder why it has not fulfilled the same even after two-and-a-half years of its second term. Further, I believe that it has been deliberately delaying the recruitment process so as to deprive the youth who participated in the Telangana agitation of government jobs by citing the maximum age eligibility parameter. I appeal to the people of Nagarjuna Sagar not to get misled by the fake promises of the CM who has made it a habit to make tall promises before elections and promptly forget them after the polling," the Congress leader added.

He also appealed to the people to help Jana Reddy win the the by-election with a majority of not less than 50,000 votes.

Congress candidate K Jana Reddy, TPCC President N Uttam Kumar Reddy and other senior party leaders also spoke at the meeting.

Earlier in the day, hundreds of local minority youth joined the Congress at a function held at ITI College in Haliya, Nalgonda district.

Speaking on the occasion, Shabbir Ali said that the minorities of Telangana had now realised that the TRS was a "B-Team of the BJP", and that the CM had been "acting as an agent of the RSS". He said not a single youth from Nagarjuna Sagar had gotten even a rupee from the Minorities Finance Corporation in the last seven years of TRS rule.