Hyderabad: Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao on Saturday strongly condemned the charges levelled by the BJP that he had abused Prime Minister Narendra Modi by calling him ‘Modi gadu’ in a recent public meeting which he addressed at Karimnagar.
“This is BJP’s creation. I only said Modi garu. But they deliberately made it as ‘Modi gadu’ with the malicious intention of sidelining serious National issues that I raised in the public meeting with regard to agriculture and farmers. I have utmost respect and regard for Modiji. If their partymen themselves want to insult the PM by misquoting me, there is little I can do. I am helpless,” Mr Rao said.
Explaining reasons for the delay in clarifying on this issue, when it has been creating political furore for the past five days, Mr Rao said, “I was not in city for the past two-three days. I did not focus on this. Now that I came to know that unnecessary hue and cry is being raised by the BJP on comments which I never made, I thought of clarifying it now. Looking at their agitation, at one point, I too doubted whether I had committed any mistake. I examined all the video tapes in which I clearly said Modi garu.”
When asked what could be the reason for BJP misquoting him, Mr Rao said, “I raised a national issue of distress among farmers and warned that a national-level agitation will soon come up if the PM fails to address the agricultural issues. I also talked about Cauvery-Godavari river interlinking saying that it’s the drama enacted by the BJP for ensuing Karnataka polls. To sideline these issues, they created this fake controversy.”
Terming Mr Modi as his ‘best and close friend’, Mr Rao said that people hardly know how clo-se and best friends they are and what issues they discuss when they meet. “The PM himself appreciated the Telangana government several times on Mission Bhagiratha, Mission Kakatiya, irrigation projects etc. I have nothing against Modiji personally,” Mr Rao said.
The Telangana CM took a dig at Union defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman and TS BJP leaders for claiming the BJP to be an alternate for TRS in the state in 2019 polls.
“In Telangana, we consider the BJP as a joke and not as a political party. They cannot win even a single seat in 2019 elections,” he said.
They will lose all the five sitting seats in the city as per our survey reports,” Mr Rao remarked.
Stating that the TRS would retain power in 2019 by winning over 100 seats, Rao said. “We have conducted two independent surveys recently by taking over 6.50 lakh samples covering all constituencies, the largest ever. One survey result said that we would gain 106 seats and the other 103 and this will prove right in 2019.”
Other highlights of CM's Press Conference:
The PM and Union ministers are praising the TRS government’s development programmes and welfare schemes but ignoring sanctioning of funds.
Telangana got only Rs 81,362 crore from the Centre in these four years. This is not because of their ‘meherbaani’ but Telangana got the share as per Constitutional provisions, including tax devolution and not a single rupee over this. In return, Telangana people pay 2.5 times higher than this amount to the Centre as various taxes.
Telangana is entitled to get a tribal university, horticulture university, Bayyaram Steel Plant, NTPC Mega Power Plant, Kazipet Railway Coach Factory, industrial incentives and Backward area grants as per the AP Reorganisation Act, but none was fulfilled by the NDA government so far. They promised AIIMS and IIMs but no progress occurred.
