VISAKHAPATNAM: As BRS leaders have stepped into Andhra Pradesh to carve a space for the party via a ‘calculated’ bidding for the steel plant in Visakhapatnam, ministers from both the Telugu states are on a tangent against each other.
Senior Telangana minister T. Harish Rao, speaking in Ranga Reddy district on Wednesday, said the central government rejected the special category status for AP but neither the ruling YSRC nor the Opposition (TD) fought for acceptance of AP’s demand. Harish Rao urged the workers in AP to withdraw their voting rights in Andhra Pradesh and settled down in Telangana.
Several AP ministers reacted sharply to Harish Rao’s comments and the TS bid for VSP. Vizag MP, M.V.V. Satyanarayana, said BRS wanted the destruction of Andhra Pradesh and hence was trying to foray into the state by getting involved in the steel plant issue.
Animal husbandry minister Seediri Appalaraju went one step ahead and branded Harish Rao, his uncle KCR, and IT minister K.T. Rama Rao as “regional terrorists.”
Appalaraju said, “It seems Harish Rao consumed toddy along with his uncle Chandrashekar Rao and made such comments in Ranga Reddy district like a drunken monkey.”
He said the KCR family, having one chief minister, two ministers and one MLC from it occupying seats of power, cannot treat Telangana as their personal fiefdom. “It was the Andhraites who developed Telangana. If the people of Andhra stop visiting Telangana, the people there would starve,” he said.
Calling the people of Telangana “brainless,” the minister warned Harish Rao against further interference in the affairs of Andhra Pradesh.”
In a direct dig on MLC Kavitha, Appalaraju said no minister or leader in AP was involved in any liquor scam.
Commenting on the participation of Singareni Collieries and its team’s visit to Visakhapatnam for filing an expression of interest in the Steel Plant, the minister said this was unacceptable. “While the people of Andhra are fighting against the privatisation of VSP, the Telangana government has sent a team to bid for the plant. Why should they do so,” he asked.
