Hyderabad: BJP president Amit Shah on Monday tweeted in Telugu for the first time. The move is aimed at bringing the party closer to the people ahead of the Assembly polls. In his first tweet in Telugu targeting the TRS, Mr Shah called upon the people of the state to take the TRS government to task for denying them the benefit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Ayushman Bharat scheme for petty political benefits. He demanded that the TRS government explain to the people why it had not agreed to implement Ayushman Bharat, which was brought by Mr Modi for the benefit of the poor and needy and to make medical facilities affordable for all in the country.
Mr Shah tweeted, “Ayushman Bharat scheme brought by Mr Modi is considered the biggest and greatest initiative in the healthcare sector in the world. It is unfortunate that the Telangana government is not willing to come forward to implement this scheme and denying the benefit of this noble scheme to people in Telangana.” He added, “Due to the selfish interests of the TRS government, the poor and needy in Telangana are losing out in availing the benefits of such a good scheme. The Telangana government should answer the people for this. BJP activists should fight against the anti-people decision taken by the TRS government. They should also take up door-to-door campaign to create awareness among the people on this issue.”
Responding to Mr Shah, caretaker minister K.T. Rama Rao said he was “clearly misinformed.” Mr Rama Rao tweeted: “The successful Arogya Sri programme of Telangana is far superior in terms of coverage (80 lakh families) in comparison to Ayushman Bharat (only 25 lakh families in TS. We are a role model state in Universal health coverage (sic).”
