HYDERABAD: As the Lok Sabha elections draw close, the three main political parties in Telangana are raising the pitch with allegations and counter allegations. Reservations for SCs, STs and BCs have taken centre stage with the Congress alleging that the BJP, if voted to power, would scrap them.
Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy is leading the attack on the BJP on the reservation front. The saffron party leaders, including state BJP president G Kishan Reddy and others, have launched a counter-attack on Revanth for carrying out ‘false propaganda’. Joining issue with the BJP leaders, Prime Minister Narendra Modi accused the Congress of giving Muslims a share in reservations of BC communities in Karnataka.
Revanth’s allegation has kicked up such a row that RSS chief Mohan Bhagawath took the first opportunity at an event in Hyderabad on Sunday to dismiss it as a canard. He asserted that reservations should continue as long as inequalities exist in Indian society. The genesis of the controversy rose from a video that went viral on social media showing Union Home Minister Amit Shah purportedly claiming that reservations would be scrapped if the BJP comes to power for third time at the Centre. The BJP said that the video was edited to show the party in poor light.
Farmers issues
On the other hand, keeping up heat on the Congress and Revanth, BRS president and former chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao, during his election campaign, focused on the farmers’ issues, including irrigation water, power, and paddy procurement in the state, alleging that the ruling party failed to address them. Former minister
T Harish Rao threw a challenge to Revanth to fulfil all the six guarantees by August 15, including waiver of farm loans. Raising stakes, Harish offered to quit as an MLA if Revanth fulfils the promises by August 15 and demanded that the latter should resign as CM if he fails.
Adding a new dimension to campaigning, BRS working president KT Rama Rao accused the BJP of trying to make Hyderabad the second capital or a Union Territory and said he his party would fight this tooth and nail if people give it a significant number of LS seats.
The heat and dust of election campaigning has left the people confused as all the three parties are leaving no stone unturned to bag as many seats as possible. Of the three, the BJP is taking it as a prestige issue to improve its tally in Telangana as the saffron party is determined to form the government at the Centre for third time and consolidate its position so that it could win the next Assembly elections in Telangana.
With a goal to win 12 parliament seats, the Congress, which came to power for the first time after formation of Telangana state, wants to consolidate the electoral gains it made in the recent Assembly elections. Its main focus is to stop the BJP surge and grab the vote share of the BRS.
The BRS, after ruling the state for 10 years, finds itself on a sticky wicket because of various factors in several constituencies. The defeat in the Assembly elections came as a bolt from the blue for the BRS. Now, the party leadership wants to regain its position as the leading outfit in the state.