Hyderabad: Former PCC president V. Hanumantha Rao on Sunday flayed Deputy Chief Minister Bhatti Vikramarka for creating ‘hurdles’ in his bid to contest from the Khammam Lok Sabha seat in the upcoming elections. He claimed that he has the support of the cadre and people’s organisations in the constituency.
Addressing the media at Telangana Bhavan in Delhi, Hanumantha Rao said, “The pretext that I am a non-local is unfair as leaders like Renuka Chowdhary and Jalagam Vengal Rao, who were also non-locals, had won from there.”
“I had installed a bust of Rajiv Gandhi in Khammam when I was a Rajya Sabha member. I was loyal to the Rajiv Gandhi family and will remain so until my last breath. I backed the candidature of A. Revanth Reddy as the Chief Minister as he had worked hard. I had also campaigned for him and Bhatti during the elections,” Hanumantha Rao said.
Claiming that he had worked for the political growth of Bhatti after the death of his brother Mallu Anantharamulu in 1990, Hanumantha Rao said that the Deputy Chief Minister hindering his candidature now is painful.
“Apart from the reserved seats in Khammam, all of them were given to forward castes and Renuka Chowdhury, who had won from the seat, was sent to Rajya Sabha. While Rahul Gandhi is promising to hold a caste census and giving importance to BC leaders like me, are being denied justice,” Hanumantha Rao said.
