Congress Tells KCR To Treat Warangal As Referendum

The Leader of the Opposition in the Telangana Council Mohammed Ali Shabbir challenged Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao to take the by-election for the Warangal Lok Sabha seat as a referendum and step down if TRS candidate P Dayakar lost it.

Shabbir Ali was reacting to the challenge made by Irrigation Minister T Harish Rao on whether TPCC chief N Uttam Kumar Reddy would quit from his post if Congress candidate Sarve Satyanarayana lost the same by-election.

Addressing the media at the Warangal DCC office, Shabbir Ali said that Harish Rao was too low in stature to challenge the TPCC chief. But if KCR made a similar challenge and agreed to accept the Warangal by-poll as a referendum, then his Party would consider making Uttam Kumar pick up the gauntlet.

The Congress leader also listed the "failures" of the TRS government during the last 530 days in power.

He also announced that the Congress would file a police complaint against Panchayat Raj Minister K Taraka Rama Rao for dubbing the Congress candidate in Warangal "an old one-rupee currency note" and tearing one up by calling it a "chellani rupayi" (fake/obsolete note).

The Congress leader said that tearing a currency note was an offence and KTR had committed it in full public view.

He also pointed out that despite being a former union minister, Sarve Satyanarayana had spoken on the Telangana issue in the former Lok Sabha.

Later, along with former Union Minister S Jaipal Reddy, Shabbir Ali visited the family of Shruti, who was killed in an alleged encounter with the police. He assured Shruti's mother that the Congress would fight against the State government until it ordered a CBI probe into the matter. He dubbed Shruti's death in an alleged encounter a cold-blooded murder.