Ms Kavitha alleged Rahul Gandhi had not spoken in favour of Telangana in the past 10 years.
Hyderabad:
Hitting out at Congress MP Rahul Gandhi’s statement on having “family ties” with Telangana, Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) MLC K Kavitha on Friday said that the relationship Gandhi family has with the state is of betrayal.
While addressing party workers’ meeting in Nizamabad, Ms Kavitha said, “Today Rahul Gandhi came to Jagital and made tall claims. He said that he has a relationship with Telangana since his grandmother’s time and father’s time. I totally agree with him (Rahul Gandhi) that he has family ties with Telangana.”
She added, “It was Jawaharlal Nehru who forcefully merged us into Andhra Pradesh and killed our aspirations. In 1969, when we demanded a separate state, 369 students were shot by Indira Gandhi. Later, Rajiv Gandhi hurt Telangana’s self-respect. Sonia Gandhi promised to give Telangana in 2009 but took it back and many Telangana children died. You have a hand in it.”
She further slammed Rahul Gandhi for not speaking in support of the state in the last 10 years.
“It was Rajiv Gandhi who insulted our Chief Minister who was from the OBC community. In the last 10 years, Rahul Gandhi never spoke in support of Telangana. He never stood with us. Yes, you surely have a relationship with Telangana to continuously betray Telangana. The people of Telangana will definitely show this to you in the elections,” she added.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, who is on ‘Vijayabheri Yatra’ in the poll-bound state, while addressing a rally at Jagtial took aim at Telangana CM and BRS chief, K Chandrashekar Rao (KCR), and said, “You (the people) thought that the ‘Janata’ would rule in the state of Telangana but when the state was formed, the rule of one single family was established.”
He went on to say, “The entire resources of the state, whether it’s land, sand, or alcohol, are all under the control of one single family.”
Rahul Gandhi is campaigning in Telangana for a third day.
The Election Commission of India (ECI) on October 9 announced that the Telangana Assembly polls are scheduled to be held on November 30. The counting of votes will be done on December 3.
Telangana is set to witness a triangular contest between the BJP, the ruling Bharat Rashtra Samithi, and the Congress in the upcoming assembly election.
In the previous Assembly election held in 2018, BRS managed to win 88 seats out of 119 and had a dominant vote share of 47.4 per cent. Congress came in a distant second with 19 seats. Its vote share was 28.7 per cent.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
