Elections are ATMs for Revanth: KTR

Hyderabad: BRS working president and minister K.T. Rama Rao said on Wednesday that Telangana state Congress president A. Revanth Reddy has turned the elections in the state as an ATM, and the man, who was caught in the note-for-vote scandal, is now running a seat-for-note operation.

Digging his party’s claws deeper into the Telangana state Congress president and the opposition party, Rama Rao said, “Revanth is now being called ‘Rate Entha’ Reddy,” adding that the Congress and its leaders were peddling fake surveys predicting a win for themselves. “They have tried these idiotic tactics in the past, which fell flat on their face,” he said.

The BRS leader also took aim at former TPCC president N. Uttam Kumar Reddy recalling how Uttam had famously taken a vow before the 2018 elections that he will not shave his beard until the BRS and Chief Minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao are defeated.

“God knows what happened to him and his beard now. Over the past 15 days, I have travelled across some 32 constituencies, addressed meetings and met thousands of people. Typically the expectations are that after nine and half years of rule by a party, there would be some discontent among the people. Nowhere did I see any resentment towards the government. On the other hand, people believe that KCR should be the Chief Minister again,” Rama Rao said.

“The agenda is clear, the mood is clear, people want KCR back,” Rama Rao said.

Ridiculing the Congress’ efforts to project itself as the party that can come to power, Rama Rao said, “the moment elections come, Congress leaders get new clothes, paint their houses, start squabbling between themselves for posts, then plant fake media surveys. These are the same stories that I saw the last time and seeing again now.”

Rama Rao was addressing a meeting of party leaders and workers at Telangana Bhavan, the BRS headquarters, where Congress leader from Devarakonda constituency, Bilya Naik, joined the BRS along with several of his supporters. Rama Rao said Naik joining the BRS will further strengthen the party and the target is to win all the 12 Assembly seats in the former unified Nalgonda district.

Continuing his attack on the Congress, Rama Rao said the opposition party had “lost every right to seek votes after being given 11 chances by the people. The Congress has scams, while the BRS has schemes, and people should choose wisely.”

Calling the Congress and the BJP “intellectually bankrupt,” Rama Rao also demanded an apology from Union home minister Amit Shah for lying about Telangana having most number of suicides by farmers. The Central government itself had said farmer suicides were the lowest in the country.

Rama Rao said that it was “KCR who played a key role in the uplift of tribal communities in Telangana. Reservations for tribals were increased from six per cent to 10 per cent, many tribal hamlets were converted into Gram Panchayats, and the BRS government, under KCR, got rid of the fluorosis problem in Nalgonda district. People in Devarakonda are today drinking clean water from the Krishna river, the same water that people in Banjara Hills in Hyderabad get.”