Harish Rao Accuses BJP Of Slandering TRS

Telangana Finance Minister and senior TRS leader T Harish Rao today hit out at the BJP for spreading lies about the state government and the ruling party ahead of the upcoming GHMC election.

Addressing a press conference at Patancheru, he accused the party of belittling politics in its campaign, for just a few seats and some votes.

The minister also took serious exception to the BJP for making "hate speeches" and "communally provocative statements".

He claimed that the party had turned to the social media to propagate misinformation through fake news and stir up chaos in the city.

"The BJP has turned the social media into anti-social media. It used the Internet to spread rumours about many TRS leaders including myself that they would join the saffron party. The BJP's leaders did this in their campaign for the Dubbaka by-election as well. It cannot commit such violations," he said.

"The BJP is frustrated about not being able to garner the people's support for the elections, and is resorting to a misinformation campaign," he alleged.

Rao also accused the BJP of sledgehammer politics by bringing in its national leadership, including the Prime Minister and several union ministers, to the city for its election campaign, and said that this amounted to belittling democratic norms.

Even Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit was part of the party's campaign, he added.

"Is it right to bring union ministers to campaign for local body elections, especially when the same leaders abstained from coming to the city, and denied it funds, when it was devastated by floods last month? Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao had appealed repeatedly to the BJP-led union government to provide funds for flood relief, but the government did not respond. Now, the same ministers are making false promises for the sake of votes," he said.

He however said that the involvement of the BJP's national leadership would be of no help to the party, and that the people of the city would teach the party a fitting lesson.