HYDERABAD, OCT 05:
The Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) will not ally with the BJP or support it in the next Lok Sabha election as the regional party was secular and the two parties had “very strong differences of opinion”, its leader and IT Minister K.T. Rama Rao has said.
Mr. Rama Rao, son of caretaker Chief Minister and TRS supremo K. Chandrashekar Rao, also dubbed as “maha ghatia bandhan” (weak combine) the proposed ”grand alliance” of the Congress, the TDP and some other parties for the coming Assembly elections in the State.
He made the comments during an interaction on Twitter on Thursday.
“We are an extremely secular party which carries people of all hues and shades and all sections of society. We don’t believe in polarising based on community and based on any other criteria that divides us. So, the question of joining [hands with] the BJP or aligning with them does not arise,” he said. “We don’t see eye to eye on a number of counts. In fact, we have very strong differences of opinion.”
Mr. Rama Rao charged the Congress and the TDP with “doing great deal of injustice” to the State people, especially for those who championed the cause of statehood for Telangana.
According to him, the Congress and the TDP had given a “golden” opportunity to the people to shoot two birds with one stone — hit the two parties with one vote.
”My request is to vote them out of Telangana and ensure that the TRS is elected again,” he said.
He expressed the hope that the TRS would win the coming elections, necessitated by the premature dissolution of Assembly by the party government, “very, very convincingly” .
Mr. Rama Rao said he was focused on ensuring the return of party chief Chandrashekar Rao as chief minister.
“Unemployment allowance”
The TRS was considering including an “unemployment allowance” in its election manifesto, he said.
Mr. Rama Rao claimed that no government had done as much as theirs for youth, especially for the unemployed. “We have already issued notifications for 90,000 [government] jobs to be filled in the last four years and nearly 40,000 recruitment has been done,” he said.
As for the crticism of the government by some Opposition parties, he said that in a democracy, political parties have every right to criticise.
”…but unfortunately the main Opposition [Congress], the principal Opposition party in Telangana, has been stooping to new lows and body shaming my children…that is a new low in politics,” he said.
