Congress president Rahul Gandhi’s arrival in Telangana on Monday was followed by hectic political activities in the state. The ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) and the opposition Congress party targeted each other during the two-day visit of Rahul.
Rahul landed in Hyderabad on Monday and addressed party's women workers at a convention centre. As his scheduled meetings were underway, the TRS held their state committee meeting at their party office and hurriedly convened a press conference in the evening in what could be seen as a clear move to deprive Rahul of a better news coverage.
Talking to media, chief minister and TRS supremo K. Chandrashekar Rao hinted at an early elections which could be held in December along with other states including Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh. The state elections are scheduled to be held simultaneously with the general elections in May, 2019.
“This cannot be called early elections as according to the election commission of India, they can conduct elections anytime before six months of the scheduled date,” said KCR before adding that they were prepared for any eventuality.
He said the list of assembly candidates will be announced in September. Party's decision to hold a big public meeting on September 2 is seen as a move to kickstart its poll campaign.
The chief minister criticised Congress party’s Delhi-centric politics and said that they would be rejected by the Telangana voters. He also accused Rahul of speaking lies to defame their party. He mocked the grand old party and predicted that they would not be able to form a government in the next elections.
The war of words only intensified on Tuesday. After an informal media interaction with senior journalists where he spoke about Rafael deal, poll alliances and BJP’s rule, the Congress president addressed a public meeting in Saroornagar. At every interaction, he sounded confident that the Congress party is going to win the state elections.
Speaking to a massive gathering of Congress workers and supporters, he accused the TRS of being hand-in-love with BJP in pushing anti-people policies. Taking potshots at the prime minister, he said Modi had redesigned the Rafale deal and gifted it to industrialist Anil Ambani. Nowadays corruption is called redesign, said Rahul and added that the Telangana chief minister was also famous for that.
Rahul said BJP’s policies like demonetisation and GST were praised by the TRS and that the leaders of both parties believed in grabbing land of poor families. He accused the TRS government of not doing enough in the fields of employment, education and health in the state. Soon after the meeting, Rahul left the city.
Within a few hours, IT minister and son of the chief minister, K.T. Rama Rao lashed out at Rahul on Twitter. He reminded Rahul about the scams that had taken place during the Congress party rule and pointed out that many state Congress leaders sharing stage with him were out on bail in corruption cases.