KCR went for early polls fearing PM Modi’s popularity, says Amit Shah

Hyderabad: Stating that the previous Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) government had failed to provide jobs to unemployed youth and also that it did not complete its promises, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) national president Amit Shah questioned the work undertaken by the K. Chandrashekhar Rao-led TRS since it came into power in 2014.

“What happened under KCR (as Rao is known)? He promised to provide the youth with 1.07 lakh jobs and now there are more vacancies (in the government),” Shah said while addressing a public meeting at Nirmal district in Telangana on Sunday as part of the BJP’s Telangana campaign for the upcoming 7 December polls.

Prior to that at Parkala, The BJP chief, also hit out against the All India Majilis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen chief Asaduddin Owaisi, asking people if it wanted to elect a party (TRS) which is supported by Owaisi (both the AIMIM and TRS call each other “friendly” parties). Shah addressed a total of four meetings at Parkala, Nirmal, Dubbaka and Narayankhed as part of his campaign on Sunday

Questioning KCR’s decision to dissolve the assembly on 6 September, Shah said that the latter was afraid of prime minister Narendra Modi’s popularity and hence did not want to conduct it as per schedule (with the 2019 general elections). “KCR also sent a proposal to give minorities 12% of reservations. But the Supreme Court has put a cap on reservations at 50%. So whose share will you cut down?” he questioned.

Claiming that KCR had said he would appoint a Dalit as the chief minister, Shah asked if he was ready to do it now. “So what happened (to the promise)? Telangana was also a revenue state, but under KCR it developed a fiscal deficit of 5.5%. And before we came into power, the state got just Rs.16000 crore under the 13th Finance Commissioner. But after we came into power, Telangana got over Rs.1 lakh crore after the 14th Finance Commission was set up,” said Shah.

The BJP chief also said that the Centre has given Telangana over Rs.2 lakh crore through funds for various development projects. “In fact, the BJP also brought out the Ayushman Bharat scheme, through which 10 crore poor people and 50 crore others of India’s population can get treatment for various medical problems including cancer. But KCR rejected this programme for Telangana,” Shah added.