BJP must ask funds for Telangana: KT Rama Rao

Hyderabad: TRS working president and minister K.T. Rama Rao on Sunday lashed out at the BJP for allegedly promoting divisive politics in the country and discriminating against Telangana state on all fronts.

Addressing TD leaders from Shamshabad who joined the TRS at Telangana Bhavan here, Mr Rama Rao said, “the BJP, instead of taking decisive and concrete steps to benefit the people and focus on development is only trying to divide them with their ‘India-Pakistan, Hindu-Muslim’ chants to garner votes.”

He pointed out that the BJP government which had presented six Union budgets so far had only meted out injustice to Telangana state despite its significant contribution to the nation’s economy.

Mr Rama Rao said, “except for devolution of funds as mandated in the Constitution, the BJP government did not allocate even a single paisa to the state. But the BJP leaders in the state continue to claim that the state is only being run with funds released by the Centre.”

He advised BJP state president K. Laxman and other party leaders to stop holding press conferences to criticise Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao unnecessarily and use their influence, “if they had any,” to get funds from the Centre for state projects like the Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Scheme.

He said that the BJP won four Lok Sabha seats by fluke as was evident from the fact that it could not stand up to the TRS wave in any subsequent election.

Mr Rama Rao said the nexus between the Congress and the BJP was out in the open during the municipal elections whe-re they backed each other to keep the TRS away from coming to power in three municipalities.

Senior TD leader Ganesh Gupta along with eight newly elected councillors in Shamshabad municipality joined the TRS. Mr Rama Rao welcomed them into the party and assured all support in their efforts to serve people of Shamshabad. He promised to extend the Hyderabad Metro Rail up to Shamshabad as part of the airport corridor.