HYDERABAD: A cavalcade of thousands of TRS workers on Thursday painted the city pink and brought the East Zone to a dramatic halt to welcome their star campaigner KT Rama Rao for the party’s maiden road show in Hyderabad this election.
Thousands of party workers thronged the streets with pink flags even as KTR declared his party’s main poll agenda for the East Zone -- to bring Apple and Facebook home.“We will bring development to the East Zone as we have in the West Zone. New IT companies will be set up to make Uppal the new hub of IT growth,” the TRS scion said and highlighted that Rs 2,100 crore was invested in Uppal.
The road show that started from Uppal, covered Mallapur, ECIL and Secunderabad Cantonment before it came to an end at Bowenpally. The 5-hour-long rally saw the participation of thousands of women from the Golla Kuruma community who danced to Bonalu and Bathukamma music. The caretaker Minister for IT and Industries claimed it was only the TRS that could offer a politically and economically stable government to Telangana.
Students injured
Meanwhile, five people, including four students, suffered injuries when helium gas balloons burst leading to a minor fire during TRS leader KT Rama Rao’s election roadshow in Uppal on Thursday evening. The incident occurred just a few minutes before the TRS leader reached the spot. The injured persons were shifted to a nearby private hospital and two of them said to have received severe injuries. According to police, the balloons may have burst due to excess pressure or someone threw a cigarette bud. A case was registered against TRS party worker Raghupathi Reddy, who had arranged the balloons, at Uppal police station.
KTR’s youth outreach
At a separate meeting in Mallareddy Engineering College in Hyderabad, KT Rama Rao interacted with students. In an attempt to encourage them to vote, Rao said, “If you can wait for one or two hours in a queue for movie tickets, you can definitely spare a few minutes to caste your votes.” The TRS leader told the students that Hyderabad would soon beat Bengaluru in the volume of IT exports.
Chidambaram’s comments politically motivated: Vinod
In a strong rebuttal to former Union Minister P Chidambaram who alleged that the Telangana was pushed into a debt trap, TRS MP B Vinod Kumar said that the State’s debts are within the limits of FRBM. Kumar said,” Since the formation of the State, Telangana incurred capital expenditure amounting to `1,45,998 crore (up to October 2018).”