Hyderabad: Congress leaders in Telangana Legislative Council Shabbir Ali and Ponguleti Sudhakar Reddy on Tuesday demanded Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao to ensure that bypolls are conducted in 12 Assembly seats represented by those Opposition MLAs who defected to TRS and garner a popular mandate.
Speaking to reporters at the CLP office, the leaders expressed surprise over the reports that the CM was talking about morals, honesty and ethics at the TRS training camp at Nagarjunasagar, but within 40 minutes after concluding the session went and admitted a TD MLA, Manchireddy Kishen Reddy in Ibrahimpatnam.
“What morals does he have in admitting an Opposition MLA into the TRS so blatantly without even asking the legislator to resign from his post?” the Congress leaders asked. Stating that so far, the CM has lured 12 MLAs and 13 MLCs from the Opposition to his party fold, Mr Shabbir Ali criticised Mr Rao for practising unethical politics. “If the CM really believes in ethics and morals, then he should ask all 12 MLAs to resign and seek fresh mandate,” he said.
They also demanded that the Chief Minister disclose details of his income, expenditure, assets and liabilities, which he accumulated since 2001 after floating TRS.
“In his affidavit filed before the Election Commission, Chandrasekhar Rao disclosed assets of Rs 85.98 lakh while contesting from Karimnagar Lok Sabha seat in 2004 elections. His assets grew to Rs 15.15 crore by 2014 elections. The Chief Minister should explain as to how his assets and properties increased by almost 17 times in just a decade. Interestingly, Mr Rao was not in power and was conducting an agitation during this period, they contended.
They said the Chief Minister had constructed Telangana Bhavan and his family had stakes in Namasthe Telangana and T-News channel.
All this happened during the agitation period which led people to suspect that Mr Rao and his family resorted to extortion. Therefore, he said that the TRS chief should explain the sources of funding for all these projects and also disclose the list of all donors and contributors. Such a disclosure would only improve Mr Rao’s image among the people, if he is really honest.
They also ridiculed the Chief Minister’s claim that he read nearly 80,000 books. “Even if the CM had started reading the books from the age of 11, then he would need to read 14 hours every day to finish 80,000 books at an average of four hours per book. If the claim about reading 80,000 books is true, then he truly deserves an entry into the Guinness Book of Records, they added.
