Working president of the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) and Minister K.T. Rama Rao has admitted that making a Dalit the Chief Minister of Telangana was one of the few promises that were not kept by the party, but the people have approved the stand by supporting it with a higher majority in 2018 compared to 2014.
Mr. Rama Rao gave detailed replies to several issues raised by newspersons at the meet-the-press organised by the Telangana State Union of Working Journalists (TUWJ) in Hyderabad on October 28. “People and the party have accepted the decision of party chief K. Chandrasekhar Rao leading the administration of the new State for its better progress and the Opposition parties should not have any objection to the people’s approval”, he observed.
On the talk of the Backward Classes (BC) census, the BRS working president said the party had been demanding it along with a separate Ministry for BC communities since 2014. It was in the first session of the Telangana Assembly that the State adopted a resolution requesting the Centre to take up BC census, 33% reservation to BC communities in law-making bodies and also for the women quota within it, he added. However, there had been no response and only for the last couple of months the Congress leadership was reciting the demand.
He hit back at those criticising the BRS Government on the issue of filling vacancies in government departments and sought to know which other State in the country, either ruled by BJP or Congress, had filled more jobs than Telangana. He mentioned that against the recruitment process taken up for filling 2.2 lakh vacancies, 1.32 lakh were already filled in nine-and-a-half years and the process for the remaining was in progress.
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Not for vendetta
Stating that the BRS Government was against pursuing vindictive and vendetta politics, had it been so, Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) president A. Revanth Reddy would have been in jail by now for his alleged involvement in the cash-for-vote scam. “Who knows, he may end up in jail in the future,” he quipped and said the BRS would believe in transformative politics.
On the Chief Minister not holding the daily ‘praja darbar’, the BRS leader said there was no need for it since the institutions at different levels were functioning properly and there would be the need for it only when they fail. On minorities’ welfare, he said the per capita budgetary allocation and spending was highest in Telangana.
Mr. Rama Rao stated that the people of Telangana had to pay dearly for about six decades (58 years) with one mistake committed by the Congress and its local leaders by accepting the region’s merger with Andhra and one more mistake of voting Congress would push the State backwards for five years.
