Giving a new twist to his often repeated call for emergence of an anti-BJP and anti-Congress alliance of political parties, TRS president and Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao on Wednesday advocated an alternative political agenda for the country, in which his party will play a role.
“It is not friendship between parties nor alternative politics, but a political agenda that is the need of the hour to make the country a super power. I will be happy if Hyderabad becomes a platform for the emergence of such an agenda and rid the country of the religious hatred spread by the BJP rule at the Centre,” Mr. Rao said in his opening remarks at the plenary of TRS to mark its twenty-first anniversary celebrations at the Hyderabad International Convention Centre. About 3,000 delegates participated in the programme.
In his over one hour address, Mr. Rao also said there was no need of any political front or realignment of political forces to make someone a Prime Minister. What was required was an agenda that the country could set for itself by framing an integrated agricultural policy and reorienting goals of various sectors, including industry, to meet the aspirants of its vast population.
He stressed that the question was not to ensure that a certain party rose to power, but to see that people assumed power in a political process that went on relentlessly. Wondering where the country was headed in the absence of set goals, he regretted that the country was in a regression mode in several sectors with the BJP regime focussed on stoking communal passions. Otherwise, how would one explain the brandishing of firearms and knives at a religious procession right under the nose of power in the capital. The BJP deliberately brought to the fore Kashmir Files, Pulwama attack and surgical strikes at the right time before polls to divide the country on religious lines and capture power.
The BJP stoked religious passions by glorifying the assassins of Mahatma Gandhi to gain political mileage. It was difficult to undo the damage as nation building under the impact of a vitiated atmosphere took a long time. The government needlessly intervened in hijab and halal issues in Karnataka which could affect not only the 30 lakh IT professionals employed in Bengaluru, but 13 lakh skilled workers employed overseas. Will the Centre give them jobs if they were deported by other countries? The Members of Parliament of Kuwait had already raised the religious propaganda in India with their government. People of India were reconsidering that the earlier regime of UPA was better than the BJP-led NDA government, he added.
Mr. Rao discussed the rapid strides taken by Telangana since its formation eight years ago while the picture was grim at the national level. The developmental indicators of the country were nowhere near Telangana which was visible from the latter’s gross state domestic product (GSDP) which grew from ₹5 lakh crore to ₹11.5 lakh crore during the period. If the BJP government at the Centre had worked like the TRS government, the GSDP would have been ₹ 14.5 lakh crore. The possibility of GSDP rising to such level in a healthy economic environment was indicated by none other than the Comptroller and Auditor General of India.
The country’s economy would have flourished if it tapped 65,000 tmcft river water available in the country. The country exploited only 29,000 tmcft. The allotment of another 4,000 to 5,000 tmcft water coming from Tibet was yet to be decided. Similarly, the installed power generation capacity of the country was 4.01 lakh MW but never more than two lakh MW was used. Telangana surplussed in power while there were power cuts in Gujarat, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Chhattisgarh and even the neighbouring A.P., he said.
