HANAMKONDA: In an attempt to take the wind out of the sails of Congress leader and MP Rahul Gandhi’s visit to Osmania University in Hyderabad on May 7, Panchayat Raj Minister Errabelli Dayakar Rao on Tuesday wondered if the Wayanad Parliamentarian would promote pub culture at the event as he is currently visiting them in Nepal.
The Minister, maintaining that permission for Rahul Gandhi's interaction with students is at the discretion of OU vice-chancellor and that the State government had nothing to do with it, said: “Rahul Ganhi is very busy visiting pubs in Nepal and it is possible that if the meeting at OU takes place, he would share his experiences of partying in pubs in the Himalayan kingdom.”
The Minister predicted that Rahul Gandhi's public meeting in Warangal on May 6 would turn out to be damp squib as the ground is only 20 acres wide which can hardly accommodate 20,000 people. “Where will five lakh farmers sit if such a huge congregation, as the Congress leaders are professing, sit and watch Rahul Gandhi speak?” he asked and dared the organisers to look for 500 acres of land and mobilise five lakh people as TPCC president A Revanth Reddy has been claiming.
Hits out at Bandi
Training his guns at the BJP, Dayakar Rao chastised the party State president and MP Bandi Sanjay Kumar for making allegations against the TRS government. He described the BJP leader as a pseudo-intellectual who does not know even the rudiments of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS).
He said that the Centre has stopped payments to the State government ostensibly to reduce its involvement and said it would credit the amount into the MGNRES workers’ account. “But what has happened was that Rs 232 crore of labour component payable by the government has not yet arrived. If Bandi Sanjay persuades the Centre and ensures the release of funds, the State government will honor him,” he said.