Though campaigning for the upcoming MLC elections in the graduates' constituencies of Warangal-Nalgonda-Khammam and Hyderabad-Mahabubnagar-Rangareddy is already over, it looks like the exchange of allegations between the political parties in Telangana is yet to cease.
A delegation of Congress leaders, led by TPCC President and MP N Uttam Kumar Reddy, today met Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Shashank Goel at the latter's office, and urged him to take action against the ruling party, the TRS, for allegedly violating the Model Code of Conduct in the MLC elections.
Speaking to the media after the meeting, Reddy, along with ex-MLA Marri Shashidhar Reddy, Hyderabad Congress president Anjan Kumar Yadav and other leaders, alleged that the leaders of the TRS had been indulging in various electoral malpractices and irregularities to "lure" to voters into supporting the party's candidates in the March 14 elections.
"Knowing it cannot win the two MLC seats by fair means, the TRS has resorted to using a horde of underhand ways to lure voters to support its candidates. The party has distributed crores of rupees in cash among the voters of the poll-bound districts. Further, the ruling party has even tried to get fake voters - those without graduate degrees - enrolled in the elections, and has been attempting to misuse the postal ballots meant for police personnel on duty. It has also forcibly recruited the buses of various private schools to transport voters to polling booths," he said.
"We met Chief Electoral Officer Shashank Goel, and briefed him about the TRS' various electoral malpractices, and demanded that the problem be addressed at the earliest. We also urged him to look into the sources of funding for the full-page newspaper adverts being printed by the party, and take the requisite action against it. The CEO assured us that he would enquire into all the problems we had highlighted," the MP added.
Broaching the matter of the newspaper advertisements in greater detail, the leader then slammed the TRS for using a picture of former Prime Minister P V Narasimha Rao, and asserted, "Narasimha Rao was a Congress leader throughout his life, and had headed two Congress regimes - one as Chief Minister and the second as Prime Minister. It is immoral, unethical and illegal for the TRS to seek votes by showing a picture of a great leader of our party. It also brings out just how opportunistic and hypocritical TRS supremo and Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao is. When the former PM was in power, our CM had often used abusive language against him. Now after his death, however, the CM seems to have no problems in shamelessly hijacking his enduring legacy."
"In fact, this same hypocrisy is further unraveled in the TRS' attempts to beg the state's government employees for votes in the upcoming elections. After ignoring the employees, who have been demanding a revised and enhanced fitment of at least 43%, suddenly the ruling party and the CM both seem very invested in their wellbeing. As part of this pathetic attempt to mobilise support, KCR went ahead and deliberately leaked the government's plans to implement a fitment of 29%, after he met the representatives of various employee associations. But this rate is also far too low. The TRS regime is cheating the employees, and it is quite likely that the promised 29% will drop to an even lower rate after the elections. The employees must teach the TRS a lesson by voting in favour of the Congress. The shock of the defeat will prompt the CM to implement a 43% fitment. Similarly, the unemployed youth should also use the elections to teach the ruling party a lesson, and shock it into introducing its long-awaited unemployment dole. There is no other way to get the CM and his party to snap out of their insularity," he charged.
This is the second time the Congress has made such allegations against the TRS in the past few days. N Uttam Kumar Reddy had flayed its leaders for allegedly indulging in illegal practices to
coerce voters to support the party in the upcoming MLC elections earlier this week as well.