PTI, NIZAMABAD/MAHBUBNAGAR: Prime Minister Narendra Modi Tuesday lacerated Telangana’s ruling TRS and the Congress for perpetuating “family rule” and pursuing “vote bank” politics that harm development like “termites”.
Calling the two parties two sides of the same coin, Modi recalled caretaker Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao’s “apprenticeship” with the Congress, and claimed they were playing a “friendly match” in the assembly polls.
He invoked Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel to claim had the political titan not been there Indians would have needed Pakistani visa to visit Hyderabad, the present-day capital of Telangana. Patel was widely credited for the annexation of the princely state of Hyderabad whose Muslim ruler did not want to join the Indian union.
“The chief minister of Telangana and his family think they can get away with doing no work like the Congress…. They have adopted the style of the Congress which ruled for 50-52 years without doing anything. But that cannot happen now,” Modi told an election rally in Nizamabad, as he took the poll battle to Rao’s turf. Rao’s daughter K Kavitha represents Nizamabad in the Lok Sabha.
“Congress and TRS are two faces of the same coin. Both parties are competing against each other on who tells more lies.
“TRS and Congress are family-ruled parties playing a friendly match in Telangana polls,” he said, adding it was a “big joke” that UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi and Congress president Rahul Gandhi assailed the TRS for being a “family party” at an election rally last week.
Modi sought to appeal to “Telangana pride” when he referred to AIMIM leader Akbaruddin Owaisi’s recent remark that whoever became the chief minister of Telangana or undivided Andhra Pradesh had to bow before his party.
“A leader recently said whoever became the CM of Andhra Pradesh-Telangana had to be at his feet (kadmon ke neeche). You fought for Telangana for your self-respect. Will you want a CM who bows at the feet of some leader instead of the people of Telangana?” the prime minister told another rally at Mahbubnagar.
