TRS does not treat minorities as mere vote bank, says KT Rama Rao

Hyderabad: TRS working president K.T. Rama Rao on Saturday said that neither the ruling party nor its president and Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao believed in or praticed divisive politics.

While addressing minorities at a public meeting in Kukatpally, Mr Rama Rao said that all political parties had used minorities as vote banks, but the TRS had never treat them as one. It had given the minorities equal participation for the development of Telangana during the tenure of the first TRS government.

Mr Rama Rao said as the party had never discriminated the people in the name of religion or caste, the state given a massive mandate to the TRS to rule for a  second time in the December 2018 elections.

Maintaining that the TRS had started 206 residential schools for the minorities in five years, he said more than 60,000 boys and girls were pursuing their studies in those schools. Mr Rama Rao pointed out that the Congress governments in the 10 years from 2004 to 2014 had allocated only Rs 2,744 crore for the minorities. The TRS government in its first five-year term nad allocated Rs 6, 579 core for the welfare of the minorities.

While appealing to the people not to fall in the trap of the Congress and BJP, he said, “The people of the country are disappointed with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Congress president Rahul Gandhi since both failed to play their roles in initiating credible action to resolve basic problems plaguing the nation.”

He said, “The PM made no significant contribution to the country’s development that he can claim credit for. Hence, he is indulging in raking up unnecessary issues such as politics of religion to divert people’s attention.”

Urging the people not to vote for the candidates of the two national parties, Mr Rama Rao asked, “Is development possible only through national parties? Why are people being deprived of basic needs even 60 years of BJP and Congress rule?”

Voting for the Congress and the BJP would only help Mr Gandhi and Mr Modi, he said. If they voted for the TRS it would help for the state progress and give the party strength to bargain and demand that the government at the Centre resolves the issues of  the state

He said, “We neither need a chowkidar nor a thekedar. What we need is a zimmedar (responsible), imandaar (sincere), asardar (effective) leader who will address our day-to-day issues on priority. With 16 TRS MPs, the CM will ensure better funds and projects to the state as neither the BJP nor the Congress are in a position to get an absolute majority in the Lok Sabha elections.”