K Chandrasekhar Rao runs one-man show: Vijayashant

Hyderabad: Actor-turned-politician and Congress star campaigner Vijayashanti said TRS president and Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao always felt insecure and did not want leadership to grow in the party. 

Though the Congress could win the Telangana elections, the party had to be careful about Mr Rao as he was capable of playing tricks in the 11th hour to defeat his opponents, she said. 

She had cautioned Congress leaders given her experience of almost four years of association with Mr Rao, Ms Vijayashanti said.

Speaking to this news paper, Ms Vijayashanti said she had merged her Talli Telangana Party in January 2009 with the TRS after Prof. A. Jayashankar and other idealogues had advised her that when the goal — achieving a separate state — was one she should not divide the people.

She said she had faced a terrible time in the TRS and Mr Rao had conspired to get her to leave the party.

She alleged that Mr Rao who had promised to merge the TRS with the Congress after the UPA government announces statehood took a U-turn when UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi refused to accept his demand to announce him as the first Chief Minister of the new state.

Ms Vijayashanti had joined the BJP in 1998 but founded the Talli Telangana Party during the 1999 elections when she was the star campaigner of the BJP.

Asked why she quit the BJP, she said it had promised ‘one vote, two states’ at its Kakinada convention but had failed to fulfil it and betrayed the people of Telangana.

“I was elected MP from Medak on a TRS ticket but I never got any prominence in the party. I was instrumental in shifting KCR from Khammam to the NIMS in Hyderabad when the police took him in custody during his indefinite hunger strike during the statehood agitation,” she added.

She said she had joined in the Congress as per her commitment to Ms Gandhi after the UPA government announced formation of separate Telangana.

Asked why she had been made star campaigner when she was not so active in the party for quite some time, Ms Vijayashanti said she could not spare time due to personal compulsions

She said that the Congress had asked her to play a key role to defeat the TRS.

Ms Vijayashanti said the people of Telangana state were hoping that the Congress and its allies would develop the state as they had not benefited TRS rule. 

They were saying this during her campaign, Ms Vijayashanti said.