Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi warned the people of Telangana again and asked them to not to put their future in the hands of “leaders without credibility”. Addressing an election rally in Warangal, the hotbed of Telangana movement, on Friday, Rahul Gandhi mainly targeted Telangana Rashtra Samiti president K Chandrashekar Rao and described him as a leader who did not keep his word.
Giving a detailed account of how KCR went back on his promise of merging the TRS with the Congress, Rahul said he could understand his betraying Congress. “But he promised to make a Dalit the first Chief Minister of Telangana and forgot it. Now his only goal is to become the Chief Minister,” Rahul said.
After last week’s visit to Mahbubnagar and Nizamabad, this was Rahul’s third rally in Telangana and he attracted a massive crowd despite intense summer heat.However, content wise there was a little new in his address. His emphasis was on developing Telangana in to a prosperous State in which all the sections will get their due share. “Telangana will become 29th State of India on June 2. It will only be the first step. But we have to ensure that Telangana is for all the people SCs, STs, OBCs and women. Social justice means poorest of the poor should be part of the development,” he said.
Rahul promised to develop Telangana as the manufacturing hub and promised to set up a 4,000 MW power plant in the region for the purpose. He said that the youth of Telangana will get employment and prosper only when they are part of making Telangana a manufacturing hub and replace ‘Made in China’ with ‘Made in India’.He reiterated his allegation that both the Telugu Desam Party and the BJP had tried to stop the formation of Telangana State and the TRS had not played any role in it either.
He promised the waiver of farmers’ loan upto `2 lakh. Reminding the people that the UPA Government had waived loans of farmers to the tune of `70,000 crore, Rahul said that only the Congress could fulfill the promises it made. “TRS leader has promised waiving of the farmers loans but he will forget it,” he said.Rahul was scheduled to address another rally in Hyderabad later on Friday evening. His rally will be held at the same lal Bahadur Stadium where his main rival BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi had addressed the NDA’s rally on Tuesday.
Rahul’s visit is part of the Congress game plan to go all out to retain its hold over Telangana region where 17 lok Sabha and 119 Assembly seats will have polling on April 30.