Congress Provokes KCR Post District Reorganization

After Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao's refusal to reply to allegations levelled against him on the district reorganization issue, Leader Of Opposition in the Telangana State Legislative Council Mohammed Ali Shabbir ridiculed his claim that the TRS was still the most popular party in the State, and slammed him over various issues including the district reorganization and election promises.

Addressing a press conference at the Congress Legislature Party office on Thursday, Shabbir Ali said that the the Chief Minister was not "willing to accept the reality" that the ruling Party had lost people's faith in the past 28 months.

Shabbir Ali said that the TRS had won the previous by-elections and the GHMC polls on the basis of empty promises. However, people realised that the Chief Minister had cheated them on repeated occasions, he claimed, and dared the CM to go for fresh by-elections.

He ridiculed the notion that TRS was gaining popularity by pointing out the defections case in which 25 MLAs and three Lok Sabha MPs had defected from the Telangana Congress and the TDP to the TRS. Shabbir Ali expressed hope that the Supreme Court would disqualify the defectors.

He further challenged KCR to fire the defectors himself if he "stands by the truth as he claims".

Referring to the Chief Minister's meeting with the leaders of the minority communities at his farm house on Wednesday, Shabbir Ali said that the Chief Minister was once again making empty promises of giving 100% loan subsidies.

"This is again an empty promise, and also something almost impossible to keep. You should first fulfill the promise of allocating 12% quota in the employment and the education sector to Muslims," he said.

Shabbir Ali that KCR's appointing Muslims to the post of MLC, Rajya Sabha seat or other corporations would not resolve the problems being faced by the community. He advised him to emulate the Congress which empowered more than 10 lakh poor Muslims by providing them 4% quota in education and jobs. He asked the Chief Minister to come up with a clear road map on implementing 12% Muslim reservation and expedite it.

Commenting on the CM's assurance to provide direct loans to minorities, he said that more than 1.67 lakh loan and 7,000 Shaadi Mubarak applications submitted last year were still pending. Neither the State Minorities Finance Corporation nor banks were showing any interest in giving loans.

Mocking KCR's claims that Telangana had a sound financial position, Shabbir Ali said, "Then I think your government can very well forgive all the farmer loans. But the fact is that the government has not even released the third installment of funds under the crop loan waiver scheme. So far, only 12.5% of the amount has been released. If you can borrow Rs. 20,000 crores for Mission Bhagiratha, then why can you not do the same for welfare schemes? Similarly, the government employees' PRC arrears, the fee reimbursement, the double bedroom and the Aarogyasri schemes have not seen fruition."

He also asked the Chief Minister to provide them clarity on how much funds the State government had received from the Centre.

"BJP President Amit Shah claims that the Centre gave Rs. 90,000 crores to your government. But your own government had earlier claimed that the amount was Rs. 57,000 crores. Why would Shah lie? I think he has no reason to do so," he alleged.

Shabbir Ali also condemned the Chief Minister for giving special treatment to his home turf Siddipet during the district reorganization process. He said that when KCR could release Rs. 100 crores to Siddipet and fund a medical college there, he should give at least Rs. 50 crores to the remaining 30 districts and ensure at least one government college.

He demanded that the TRS supremo respond to the Congress' questions.