Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao has said that national leaders come and go after addressing rallies and Congress president Rahul Gandhi was one among them and was welcome to the State.
“Why should we be afraid of Rahul Gandh?”.Eventually, all parties have to battle it out and win elections, said Mr. Rao at a media conference on the Congress charge that the TRS had pressed the panic button.
On Mr Gandhi’s remark that Telangana had registered negative growth under TRS rule, Mr. Rao counselled him to grow in stature . Or else, Mr. Gandhi would lose respect. Already, Mr. Gandhi was seen as an asset to rivals of the Congress. Mr. Gandhi further confirmed the public perception about him by his loose comments.
Reacting to Mr. Gandhi’s charge that the revenues of Telangana had seen a surplus under Congress rule but they slid back under TRS, Mr. Rao asked the former to make a mature assessment and not merely read out from prepared text. The Congress was never in power in Telangana as it was solely TRS rule since the formation of the State.
He denied Mr. Gandhi’s claim that the TRS government had promised 28 lakh double bedroom houses or a job a house. Answering the charge of dynastic rule in TRS, Mr. Rao said it was better than that under the Congress. He said he saw nothing wrong in dynastic rule but the tradition of Congress leaders to bow to diktat of the party high command was atrocious, which people of erstwhile Andhra Pradesh rejected and handed over power to NTR.
Mr. Rao made light of the Congress as a party that was not confident of winning even 20 Lok Sabha seats in any major State. The party tried to isolate settlers from Andhra Pradesh in Hyderabad by promoting rift with native population.
He criticised the promises of the Congress to provide unemployment allowance and waiver of DWCRA loans. While unemployment needed to be redefined to identify people who fitted into that bracket, it was impossible to waive DWCRA loans.
