The Telangana Congress observed the completion of four years of NDA rule at the Centre as ‘Betrayal Day’ with a rally from the Gandhi Bhavan and later burning the effigy of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Similar protests were organised in the districts.
All senior Congress leaders, including AICC Telangana incharge R.C. Khuntia, TPCC president N. Uttam Kumar Reddy, CLP leader K. Jana Reddy, LoP in Council Mohd. Shabbir Ali, former TPCC chief Ponnala Lakshmaiah, city Congress chief Anjan Kumar Yadav, Mahila Congress chief Nerella Sharada and former Mayor Banda Karthika Reddy, attended the programme at Gandhi Bhavan.
Protest rally
Accompanied by large number of party activists some Congress leaders took out rally till Nampally and burnt the effigy of the Prime Minister despite efforts from the police to foil their attempts. They raised slogans against the Prime Minister saying he failed the nation on all the fronts and not a single election promise was fulfilled.
Police arrested former Mayor Banda Karthika Reddy, Youth Congress president Anil Kumar Yadav and TPCC secretary Banda Chandra Reddy, among others and shifted them to Begum Bazar police station.
Later, the Congress leaders released a booklet “India Betrayed” that explained how the country lost an opportunity to grow and how the BJP government failed in the economic sector, agriculture, national security and how the burden of oil prices was passed onto the common man leading to hardships.
High oil prices
Mr. Khuntia said the Modi government should answer the 41 questions raised by the Congress leadership and accused the BJP-led government of cheating all sections including youth, farmers, students and minorities.
What happened to the ₹ 15 lakh black money that was supposed to be deposited in everyone’s account and why the fuel prices were were high when the crude oil prices were much below than the UPA rule.
He said Congress was the only alternative to the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) in Telangana and was confident of winning the next elections as people were fed up with the TRS rule.
Later, in an informal chat, Mr. Shabbir Ali said Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao was a pseudo-secular leader and it reflected when he did not turn up in Bangalore where opposition parties of the country gathered to show their might to Mr. Modi.
State-wide protests
He said the Chief Minister was afraid of Mr. Modi due to cases against him and was acting on the advice of the Prime Minister.
In Nizamabad, DCC president Taher Bin Hamdan led the party workers in the protest. He accused the BJP of stoking embers among different religious people harming the secular fabric of the nation.
Nizamabad City Congress president K. Venu, Mahila Congress district president and Ex-MLA T. Arunatara, PCC secretary Rambhoopal, Javed Akram and Muppa Ganga Reddy were present.
In Karimnagar, TPCC vice president Ponnam Prabhakar led the party workers in staging the protest and courting arrest.
