Narendra Modi trying to get cheap publicity with claim of surgical strike: KCR

HYDERABAD: TRS president and chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao on Friday accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of blatantly and repeatedly spreading lies against the TRS government in Telangana.

“I heard Modi said in Mahbubnagar that we are refusing to accept the centre’s Ayushman Bharat health scheme and what he spoke is only lies,” he said.

KCR explained that the Arogya Sri scheme of Telangana was far better than Ayushman Bharat. “If we accept that, only 25 per cent of people will be benefited and the benefit is far less,” Chandrasekhar Rao said.

Under the Ayushman Bharat scheme, fewer people can enroll for it because the eligibility criteria keeps many poor out of it. But the Telangana government’s Aroya Sri scheme can be availed by more people because the eligibility criteria is more broad to include more people who are poor.

Chandrasekhar Rao said the BJP was trying to garner cheap publicity by talking about the surgical strikes conducted across the border. “They are talking about that with a view to gain votes and this is sad,” he said.

KCR reminded that he was a union minister in the UPA cabinet and surgical strikes were a common thing. “Such surgical strikes would have taken place a dozen times. The government does not have to talk about such things but BJP is trying to gain political mileage out of it,” he said.

“They are publicizing that 300 people were killed in the surgical strikes but

Masood Azhar

there said not an ant was killed,” KCR said.

The TRS leader said according to the latest information he got, in the ensuing Lok Sabha elections, the NDA would not win more than 150 seats and the Congress would not get more than 100. “It is regional parties which will rule at the centre,” he said, adding that a confederation of political parties – which he described as Federal Front – would come to power at the centre.

KCR also reiterated that he would launch a national party but it would be after the Lok Sabha polls after studying the situation.

Chandrasekhar Rao asked farmers in Telangana to temporarily not get any land records changed or buy or sell their agricultural land. “Wait until June. We are coming up with a system that will help everyone. Do not pay bribe to anyone to get your work done now,” he said.

The TRS leader brushed aside allegations of PCC president Uttam Kumar Reddy that the Nalgonda TRS candidate Vemireddy Narasimha Reddy paid Rs 100 crore to get a TRS ticket.

Demanding that Uttam Kumar Reddy apologise for the statement, he said Vemirreddy had always been with the Telangana movement. “In fact, it is the party which is supplying him publicity material,” he said.

KCR criticised the BJP’s brand of

Hindutva

as ‘political hindutva’ and those following it as ‘pseudo Hindus’. He said the party had done nothing for the benefit of Muslims and BCs in the country.

“Modi has failed the country in the last five years,” he said.