TRS working president K.T. Rama Rao has said that his party and others, which will forge a common front in the post-poll scenario, will win 70 to 100 seats in the Parliament elections to act as a pressure group at the Centre.
Already, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav is in touch with the TRS, Mr. Rao said at a party meeting of Secunderabad Parliamentary constituency to gear up cadre for elections.
He stressed the dire need for a common front of like-minded parties because the Centre is indifferent to the demands of States.
“If the Centre is in our hands, we can go ahead with our plans to construct skyways from Patny to Suchitra Junction and Jubilee Bus Station to Tumkunta,” he said. The twin projects require acquisition of about one hundred acres of defence land. The State Government promised sanction of five hundred acres to compensate for the land acquired but the Centre is indifferent, he alleged.
The same is the case with a request by State Government for eight acres of railway land available at Secunderabad but the Centre did not give an inch, he added.
Railway Minister Piyush Goyal was also silent on the demand for inclusion of Hyderabad in high speed rail network, he said.
Mr. Rama Rao said there is no visible Modi wave this time unlike in 2014 when the BJP rode to power with 282 Parliament seats, aided by the latter’s popularity as three-time Chief Minister of Gujarat. Now, all surveys show that BJP will not win more than 150 seats and the Congress not more than 100 seats. “Even if the two parties come together, they will not get 273 seats required to form the government,” he said. Therefore, the role of non-BJP and non-Congress parties becomes crucial, he said.
He said the BJP had no moral right to seek votes in Telangana because it did nothing for the State while enjoying power at the Centre. The party insulted and removed its lone MP in the State, Bandaru Dattatreya, from the Union Cabinet. No one knows why Mr. Dattatreya was dropped, he said. Mr. Rao expects the party to wrest the Secunderabad seat from BJP as the former won six segments and its friendly party, MIM, won at Nampally in the constituency in the recent Assembly elections.
The meeting was addressed by Ministers Mohammed Mahmood Ali and T. Srinivas Yadav and party secretary general K. Keshava Rao.
