KCR attacks Revanth, recalls association with Kamareddy

Kamareddy: Chief Minister and BRS president K Chandrashekar Rao on Thursday attacked Telangana Congress president A. Revanth Reddy, asking the voters of Kamareddy — where the two are facing off — if they wanted to elect a person who had tried to destabilise the BRS government by trying to buy ruling party MLAs.

Addressing a public meeting after filing his nomination papers from Kamareddy, Rao did not name Revanth Reddy but left no one in doubt as to who his attack was aimed and said, “You should decide who should be taught a lesson.”

Rao recalled his close association with Kamareddy saying his mother was born in Konapur and how when he was very young he would would come to the village. During the statehood movement, he came as a ‘brigadier’ for Kamareddy mandal as part of the ‘Jalasadhana’ agitation, Rao said.

It was the Kamareddy Bar Association, the first group of lawyers who passed a unanimous resolution for formation of Telangana, which gave a huge fillip to the statehood movement, he added.

Rao, who is also contesting from Gajwel where he won in 2014 and 2018, promised to turn Kamareddy into a “gold nugget” if elected from the constituency.

“KCR,” he said, “does not come alone. A lot comes with KCR. With KCR coming, Kamareddy and Yellareddy constituencies will get water as we will complete the pending Kaleshwaram project works on a war footing to irrigate the two constituencies in the next year or two. With KCR, many things will come. There will be education institutions, industries. Kamareddy town and villages will change and will see development on an unimagined scale.”

The BRS president, continuing his attack on Congress, said “Uttam Kumar Reddy of the Congress says taxpayer money is being wasted on Rythu Bandhu when another says three hours of power supply is enough for farmers. Rahul Gandhi says Dalit Bandhu should be thrown into the Bay of Bengal. Is that what you all want?”

He said for 50 years Congress did nothing, be it providing water, power, jobs, or do anything to increase crop production. After the BRS government came, things turned around with a 24 hour power supply, several schemes and programmes for farmers. “The next five years there is scope for great things to happen in Telangana. This is why voters should consider not just the candidates but the parties they come from,” he said.

He said the BJP had done nothing for Telangana other than make it difficult for the state, as was the case with holding back Rs 25,000 crore just because he did not bow down to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s orders to install electricity meters at agriculture pumpsets.

Rao promised that in the next term, the BRS government would extend welfare pension to nearly one lakh women bidi workers who joined the profession after 2014. Telangana is the only state that provides pensions to bidi workers, he said.