Opposition Leaders Are Vultures: KTR

Telangana Panchayat Raj Minister K T Rama Rao today lashed out at the Opposition Parties for giving a call for a Telangana bandh on October 10 over the crop loan waiver issue.

Talking to media persons at Medak during a Swachch Medak program along with Deputy Speaker Padma Devender Reddy, the minister belittled the Opposition's call for a State bandh on Saturday.

"Is it for destroying the region during their regimes?" KTR tauntingly asked.

He also expressed surprise at the BJP and the TDP calling for a bandh instead of asking the Centre to provide financial assistance.

Was Narendra Modi the Prime Minister of only the BJP-led States in India or also of all other States including Telangana, he wondered.

He stated that the crop insurance of the Centre was a big joke, and sought to know from the BJP government why it could not give a package to Telangana similar to what it had done in the case of Bihar.

The Opposition leaders were vultures and not the kin of the farmers, he charged. The Congress and the Telugu Desam Party had ruled the State for long, and had only indulged in neglecting the region in all critical areas including agriculture, irrigation, welfare and other sectors, he alleged.

The same leaders who forced the police to lathi-charge the farmers for seeking power were now shedding crocodile tears, he said.

The TRS government had allotted Rs 17,000 crores towards the crop loan waiver, and had already released half of it, KTR said. Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao had made it clear that the remaining Rs 8,500 crores would also be cleared, and efforts were on to do that. The government had promised in writing to the banks that the amount would be waived off. And yet the Opposition was trying to malign the TRS' image, he charged.

The misery that piled up during 60 years of misrule could not go away in just 15 months, he maintained.

The Opposition should try to give confidence to the farmers so that they did not end their lives, instead of calling for shutdowns, KTR suggested.