Telangana: KCR Blasts CM In Tit-For-Tat Press Conference

After CM Kiran Kumar Reddy's rebellious press conference yesterday where he made a thinly-veiled attack on the Congress High Command for deciding to bifurcate the state, and rattled off several facts and numbers to show how the decision would harm people of both states, it was the turn of nemesis and T-state chief protagonist K Chandrasekhar Rao to address the media today.

In this typical colourful style, KCR called CM Reddy's assertions yesterday a pack of lies, and opined that the CM was mentally disturbed.

He said that while it was true that Telangana had a power supply deficit, he asked if the residual Seemandhra state that had a significant power surplus would not sell power to Telangana. Would not the Seemandhra state need Telangana's help with other issues, he wondered.

He also claimed that the people of Telangana would work to make it a power surplus state soon. He said that Telangana had a deficit of only 2,500MW, and that with several approved power generation proposals, it was only a matter of time before he gap was bridged.

He also said that there was no point in discussing the status of Hyderabad any more after the CWC had made it amply clear that Hyderabad would be an integral part of Telangana.

He said that Ambedkar had once told the Gujaratis, who were arguing similarly over Mumbai several decades back when Gujarat was being created, that they were merely tenants in Mumbai, and that the situation was just the same between Seemadhraites and Hyderabad.

He asserted that the division of assets between the 2 states would happen completely lawfully. He said that several rivers in the world, like the Nile, were being shared by many countries, and that Godavari and Krishna could also be shared between multiple states.

He also said that all people born in Telangana were children of Telangana, and that the Telangana government would ensure the safety of everyone in Telangana. He invited Kiran to continue staying in Telangana, and set up a tiffin centre here if he wanted to.