-
In his first trip to Telangana, Modi remotely inaugurated or laid the foundation stone for various projects in different parts of the state.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday launched Mission Bhagiratha, a project aimed at supplying piped drinking water to every household in Telangana. This is one of the pet projects of Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao and has already got a pat from the prime minister.
The flagship project was launched at Komatibanda village in Gajwel constituency of Medak district. Gajwel is also the chief minister's home constituency. Modi officially turned a tap to launch the project for supply of drinking water to 243 villages in Gajwel.
In his first trip to Telangana as PM, Modi also remotely inaugurated or laid the foundation stone for various projects in different parts of the state.
He remotely inaugurated Manoharabad-Kothapally (Hyderabad-Karimnagar) railway line, reopened Rashtriya Fertilizer Corporation Limited (RFCL) which was closed in 1999, laid foundation stone for 16000MW NTPC thermal power plant at Ramagundam and Kaloji Health University at Warangal.
Earlier, after landing at Begumpet Airport in Hyderabad, Modi left for Komatibanda in a helicopter.
In his speech, the chief minister was lavish in his praise for Modi. He said that the Modi government was the most progressive and states-friendly and appealed to the prime minister to sanction a national level irrigation project, an all India medical institute and an IT investment region for the state. KCR also said that the state needed only the Centre's blessings and nothing else.
Modi in his usual non-committal style assured all help and support for the state, but gave no categorical assurance on the requests made by KCR.
The visit took more significance because both the states of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh are vying for getting the PM's attention.
If Telangana is doing it for extra favours from the Centre, Andhra Pradesh has been pushed to the wall to seek a special category status, which, if announced, will give the cash strapped state some relief.
The special status issue is creating a few misunderstandings between the BJP and the TDP, who had made a political tie up during the 2014 elections.
Rumour has it that the BJP might look for a new electoral partner in Telangana in 2019 forcing the TDP to face the elections on its own. It is also said that the BJP might be looking at TRS, though that would be very surprising, for the state BJP does not get along with the ruling party.
While Andhra CM Chandrababu Naidu might have been a worried man wondering what his bette noire was planning in the four hours Modi spent with KCR, he can now relax. Naidu had also met Modi two days prior to the PM's Telangana visit, and maybe KCR should wonder what had happened in Delhi.
'Beware of fake cow worshipers'
Narendra Modi once again used a public forum to denounce cow vigilantism saying that a handful of self-styled cow protectors were bent upon creating tension in the society and called for isolating such divisive elements.
Speaking in Telangana, the prime minister asked the state governments to identify cow vigilantes and take “stringent action” against them. "Beware of these fake cow worshipers,” he said.
