Chennai: Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Saturday slammed Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao for starting a national party, saying KCR deliberately changed the name of his party TRS to Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) “on the advice of tantriks”. .
Speaking to ANI, Sitharaman said, “Chief Minister KCR stopped visiting the secretariat on the advice of tantriks and numerologists, and did not include women in his cabinet for many years. Now on the advice of the tantrik, the name of the party has been changed to BRS. After failing and betraying the people of Telangana and Telugu language, he has now launched BRS as a national party. The new party is bound to fail.”
Sitharaman said TRS was formed to fulfill the spirit of Telangana, but KCR has failed to fulfill it.
“At that time it was said that money, water and appointments (jobs) are priorities for the ambition of Telangana state. It was also said that there would be social justice and women empowerment. But, for four years from 2014 to 2018, there was not a single woman minister in the TRS government. Even after TRS was re-elected, there was no woman minister for almost a year. Apparently on the advice of some tantriks women were not given representation in the cabinet.
Sitharaman said Telangana is a revenue surplus state. When it was formed in 2014. Today, he said Telangana has a debt of Rs 3 lakh crore, with a debt-to-GSDP ratio of around 25 per cent.
Referring to the controversial Kaleshwaram lift irrigation project, the Union Finance Minister said that the project was supposed to be completed with a budget of Rs 40,000 crore but has reached Rs 1,40,000 crore without proper explanation on the reasons for the increase.
On the promise of jobs, Sitharaman said that the TRS government did not keep its promise and cheated the people.
“The TRS government has completely failed on all three fronts of funds, water and jobs,” he said.
KCR on Wednesday launched the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS), its first step towards becoming a national party to take on the BJP in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. The name change and launch of the new party by KCR was done at the state general body meeting of leaders including ministers, MPs, MLAs, MLCs and district level coordinators at the party headquarters Telangana Bhavan in Hyderabad.
K Chandrashekhar Rao presided over the meeting. JD(S) leader and former Karnataka Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy along with 20 of his MLAs attended the launch event at the TRS headquarters. TRS itself was launched in April 2000.
However, the apparent absence of KCR’s daughter and senior leader from the grand launch event of Kavita has sparked many speculations about whether cracks have appeared in the state’s first family.
Not only was Kavita missing from the high-profile event, but her name was also missing from the list of TRS in-charge for the upcoming Munugode by-election, which again raised eyebrows.
Earlier this year, KCR held a meeting with former Prime Minister HD Deve Gowda in Bengaluru to unite the opposition to take on the BJP at the Center in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, where they discussed an alternative political outfit. BJP. (ANI)
This report is automatically generated from ANI news service. ThePrint assumes no responsibility for its contents.
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