No more Telugu Desam Party-BJP alliance

Hyderabad: Telangana state BJP president G. Kishan Reddy said that the BJP would grow in the region on its own strength and there would be no further tie-ups with the Telugu Desam.

He said the BJP, thou-gh it had been a pro-Telangana party all th-ese years, could not gain electorally beca-use of its seat adjustments with the TD, which the people of Telangana considered as anti-Telangana.

Speaking to this new-spaper on Monday at the BJP party headquarters, Mr Kishan Reddy, who was elected as state president for a second term, said new party president Amit Shah would kick-start his state tours starting with Telangana on August 21 and 22.

“For the next five years we will campaign about whatever good the Narendra Modi government is doing for the people and simultaneously expose the TRS government’s failures,” Mr Reddy said.

He also said that Chief Minister K. Cha-ndrasekhar Rao should not politicise the issue of the Centre granting special powers to the governor on law and order matters in the common capital area.

“Every party has agreed for this clause in the Bill. It is only a temporary phase, it won’t be a permanent affair. It will be in place for a maximum period of 10 years. The present  mood is that the TD go-vernment wants to mo-ve to a new capital wit-hin one or two years.  Then it is only a matter of one or two years. Section 8 of the Act is very clear that Governor’s intervention comes only if the Telangana government doesn’t act on grievances. I am telling KCR now: ‘You administer the state well so that there are no chances for the Governor to interfere in your administration’,” Mr Reddy said.

He said that though the state BJP had initially decided to wait for at least six months to watch the TRS government’s performance and then react, but Mr Rao seemed to be in a hurry and started taking anti-people and anti-farmer decisions that forced the BJP to criticise.

“KCR is directly accu-sing me saying that I am anti-Telangana and serving the interests of Seemandhra and the Telugu Desam; it seems that he is not aware that even Chandrababu Naidu used to criticise me for putting obstacles in the seat sharing talks; I am not afraid of that. But KCR should explain that if I talk in favour of farmers and students of Telangana, how can it be termed as anti-Telangana? how can we spare KCR from criticism when he is leveling allegations against Narendra Modi as fascist etc.?” he said.

“KCR and Harish Rao are asking us why BJP leaders failed to get schemes from the central government if at all we are sincere about the Telangana cause. I am asking them, is it our duty to get the things done? Who is ruling the government, is it TRS or BJP? Did they ever approach us and ask for our help? It is purely the state BJP’s courtesy that an AIIMS-like superspeciality hospital is being established in Telangana. We convinced the  Union ministers and got it. Instead of thanking us, they are throwing brickbats,” Mr Reddy fumed.

When asked about the charge of the TRS that the TD was controlling the Telangana BJP leaders, Mr Reddy said, “TD has nothing to do with the BJP in Telangana. Both are separate parties. The seat adjustment is over after the elections; in fact we have lost the chance of coming to power in Telangana just because we had a tie-up with the Telugu Desam party. It is everybody’s knowledge that the TD has no place in Telangana other than in Hyderabad and Ranga Reddy districts due to its wrong policies on the Telangana issue. Whatever seats the TD got was because of the Narendra Modi factor in the city and surrounding areas. Since we had a tie-up with the wrong party we too suffered a lot,” Mr Reddy added.

He also said that he had been strongly opposed to the tie-up with the TDP but the decision was taken by the party’s central leadership. "Had we contested the elections independently, we could have improved our tally with our pro-Telangana stance and the Narendra Modi factor here. TD got power in Seemandhra due to the Modi factor and due to other factors," he said.