TRS should keep cadre in check
In Telangana, the image of the ruling TRS has been taking a severe beating in recent days. Leaders of the party are figuring in crimes being perpetrated across the state. On Friday, the Telangana High Court admitted a petition seeking a CBI inquiry into a BJP activist's suicide in Khammam district and issued a notice to Transport Minister P Ajay Kumar.
In his dying declaration on April 14, the BJP activist accused the minister of influencing the cops into registering cases against him and then took pesticide on the premises of a police station in Khammam.
The same day, in another incident in Kamareddy in North Telangana, a real estate businessman and his mother set themselves on fire in a hotel room after travelling from their native town of Ramayampet in the neighbouring Medak district.
In his dying declaration, the victim said he and his mother were ending their lives as the Ramayampet municipal chairman, who is from the TRS, insisted on a 50 per cent partnership in his real estate business. In January, an entire family died by suicide in Paloncha in Bhadradri-Kothagudem district because of a TRS leader, who is the son of a ruling party MLA.
The TRS, which claims to be a people-friendly government, should keep its party functionaries under leash if it wants to consolidate the political gains that are accruing to it from its populist schemes like Rythu Bandhu and Dalit Bandhu.
As elections are not very far away, it is all the more important for the TRS to develop a benign image. In the ruthless political battlefield, the opposition parties, particularly the BJP, are lying in wait for opportunities like these to lacerate the TRS to pieces, which the saffron party is doing now.
Telangana Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan, who is seething with rage at KCR over breach of protocol to her on several occasions, has sought a report from the government on the BJP activist's death in Khammam.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah has spoken to the kin of the victim, and other top saffron party leaders are making a beeline to his residence to turn his death into a major issue. The chief minister should watch out.