Former minister and senior Congress leader Mohammed Ali Shabbir has accused the TRS and BJP of jointly enacting the drama of investigation, summons, notices and arrests on defections and corruption while both parties have hevaily indulged in those very things over the past eight years.
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Addressing a press conference here on Sunday, Mr.Shabbir asked in what way the sale and purchase of TRS MLAs would affect the common people. “Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao engineered 47 defections during his first term and 14 defections during the second term. A total of four MPs, 25 MLAs and 18 MLCs from Congress and other parties were made to defect to TRS from 2014-18 and 12 Congress MLAs and 2 TDP MLAs defected to TRS after 2018. Why did KCR not speak about ethics, morals and democracy while engineering those defections,” he asked.
He also pointed out that three out of four MLAs, whom the BJP allegedly tried to poach, originally belonged to the Congress party. “KCR purchased Congress and TDP MLAs at whatever cost known only to them. Neither the people of those constituencies, nor the common people of Telangana benefitted from that sale. It doesn’t matter to common people if BJP purchases four or 40 MLAs. People know very well that the politics of both BJP and TRS is confined to defections and horse-trading,” he alleged.
After the farmhouse poaching case for about two weeks, now they have come up with “another drama” involving TRS MLC K. Kavitha. “If Central agencies have sufficient evidence, they should arrest her and if she is not involved, she should prove her innocence in court. Where is the need for the media stunts,” the former Minister said, adding that when Congress leaders were targeted by the Enforcement Directorate and Central Bureau of Investigation, they had appeared before the agencies concerned.
Targetting the Chief Minister, he said that for the upcoming Rabi season, no advisory has been issued to farmers and the Chief Minister did not conduct a single meeting to check whether or not farmers had sufficient/ better seeds, fertilizers and other facilities.