Hyderabad, Feb 5 (IANS) Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) working president K. T. Rama Rao suggested on Wednesday that Congress leader Rahul Gandhi change his name to “Election Gandhi”.
Slamming the Congress for not implementing the promises made to the Backward Classes (BCs) during the 2023 Assembly elections, Rama Rao termed the BC declaration a 100 per cent lie.
Reacting to Tuesday’s Assembly session, the BRS leader posted on social media that the Congress government shamelessly “peddled lies” in the name of the BC declaration.
“Lies! Damn Lies! Nothing but lies! Yesterday’s Assembly session clarified two things to the people of Telangana – the disastrous government that has no clarity and the lies you shamelessly peddled in the name of BC Declaration,” wrote KTR, as Rama Rao is popularly known.
“While the government is clueless on the data that was presented yesterday, it is clear that you never had the intention to even work towards a 42 per cent BC reservation The stark U-turn by your Congress government and then shamelessly passing on the buck to the central government clearly shows how committed you are. Proved yet again that all your guarantees and promises and declarations are nothing but political posturing,” said KTR while reacting to the caste survey report tabled in the Assembly.
“You should change your name to Election Gandhi. Your BC declaration is a 100 per cent lie and your commitment is a 100 per cent Farce,” KTR told Rahul Gandhi.
In the BC declaration released at Kamareddy during the Assembly elections, the Congress had promised to increase the BC reservations in local bodies to 42 per cent from the present 23 per cent within six months of assuming power. The Congress party had also promised 42 per cent reservation for BCs in government civil construction and maintenance contracts.
While speaking in the Assembly, KTR accused the Congress government of deceiving BCs by failing to introduce a bill for 42 per cent reservations, as promised in the Kamareddy BC Declaration meeting.
He alleged that the government merely made an announcement and avoided taking real legislative action. “We expected the government to bring a legally binding bill ensuring 42 per cent reservations for BCs. Instead, they issued a mere statement and are calling it historic. BCs will never accept this deception,” the BRS leader said.
KTR mentioned that BC communities across the state had anticipated that the Congress government would introduce a bill in the special legislative session to implement 42 per cent reservations in local body elections. However, he said the government had only issued a statement without taking concrete steps.
Referring to past incidents, KTR recalled that when the Comprehensive Household Survey was conducted under the BRS regime, Revanth Reddy publicly urged people not to provide their details.
KTR questioned, “How can the present government refuse to recognize the data collected in an open and transparent survey?” He also pointed out that the Samagra Kutumba Survey (Comprehensive Household Survey) was conducted by the previous government and it has the authentic numbers of the social categories.
KTR further explained that according to the Samagra Kutumba Survey, a total of 1.03 crore families and 3.68 crore people participated in the data collection. The survey identified that BCs make up 51 per cent of the population, which increases to 61 per cent when BC Muslims are included.
KTR criticised the government for manipulating statistics, questioning how the BC population dropped from 51 per cent to 46 per cent in the present survey.
–IANS
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