TRS will come back to power for third time: CM KCR

Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao exuded confidence that Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) party will return to power for the third consecutive time in the next Assembly polls with a bumper majority. The recent survey reports indicated that the party would secure 90 per cent seats comfortably.

Addressing the plenary, he said the party will continue to strengthen itself from the ground level. After listening to the speeches of various leaders from the party at the plenary, he expressed happiness that TRS produced able leaders for the future.

To strengthen the party further workshops will be held for the party leaders and workers. To provide an exposure to them, delegations will be sent abroad to observe the political practices there. The construction of the party’s Delhi office will commence soon and be completed in six to seven months thereafter.

The party currently has its offices in 31 out of 33 districts. He asked the party leaders to identify land for party offices in Hyderabad and Warangal. He advised the TRS Executive Committee to examine the possibility of constructing the party offices in all Assembly constituencies as well.

The Chief Minister said TRS had assets worth Rs 1,000 crore including Rs 861 crore through electoral bonds and deposits. The party was getting a monthly interest of Rs 3.84 crore from these. Its current account has about Rs 24.75 crore, which will be used for party activities.

TRS president and Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao said that a meeting of retired AIS officers would soon be held in Hyderabad to seek their inputs on various issues plaguing the nation. “All efforts will be made to study the situation thoroughly and come up with an alternative agenda. We will also go into the structural changes and reforms that need to be introduced,” the Chief Minister said.

Speaking about the failures of the BJP government at the Centre, the TRS



president, addressing the TRS plenary session here, said the meeting of intellectuals will go into the mistakes made in policy-making as also implementation of policies. There has to be optimum utilization of the abundant resources available in the country, be it water, power or even tourism.

Stating that he had sought to know at a recent meeting as to why China was progressing rapidly, Chandrashekhar Rao said he was told that it was because of one party rule and autocracy. “If our policies are better than China’s, we should be ahead of the Communist country. What we need now is disruptive politics that will facilitate rapid growth and development,” he said, and gave another example of Singapore which did not possess any resources but was a successful economy because of its focus on tourism.

“Lakshadweep in India has the cleanest beaches in the world but people are not aware of these things,” he pointed out.

Turning his attention to the Prime Minister’s advice to States to reduce VAT on fuel, the Chief Minister went ballistic stating that one should feel ashamed to even speak about this. “This was supposed to be a video conference on the Covid situation but Modi started talking about taxes. It was a drama conference. Should the Prime Minister be speaking about these issues (State reducing VAT)? It is the BJP government which has been hiking taxes and cess on petroleum products while Telangana only rounded off the decimals once,” he said.

“This is a clever move by the BJP government to weaken the States that is uncalled for and undesirable,” Chandrashekhar Rao added.

On the issue of funds for the TRS to get into the national political arena, the TRS chief said the party has 60 lakh members, and if each member donates just Rs 1,000, the party would have Rs 6,000 crore. “Moreover, there are party members who are capable of donation in lakhs and even crores,” he added.