New Delhi: Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) working president K T Rama Rao on Sunday said the Telangana model of development is one which is “inclusive, holistic, integrated and balanced” and exuded confidence it will pay rich dividends for the party to come to power for the third consecutive term this year.
The Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS), which won the two previous assembly polls, was rechristened as the BRS last October. The next Assembly polls in the state are due by the end of this year.
In an interview to PTI, Rao, who is a state minister and son of Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao, said people in the state are familiar with the governance model of Telangana. “People in the state are aware who can provide better administration and there is nobody in the opposition(in the state) who can match what Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao (KCR) can deliver for the state.” Rao said the BJP and Congress are vying for power in Telangana but claimed they have nowhere showcased a governance model similar or better than the southern state even though they are in power in 20-odd states across the country.
“Secondly, people will compare and contrast. If Congress and BJP are vying for Telangana state then they should also showcase. They have 20 plus states under their belt and should showcase a better model of governance than Telangana,” he said, when asked how the elections will be different under the BRS banner.
Asked how the Telangana model is different from the Gujarat model, he said, “I would rather not comment on the Gujarat model because it is now done and dusted. People have seen the reality.” “I am very confident that this good governance model will pay rich dividends and help the BRS handsomely and KCR will become a hat-trick CM. No south CM has been able to pull off a hat-trick so far. He will be the first CM to do that, mark my word,” he said.
“Last time, the TRS had won 88 seats. In the coming Assembly elections, the party will win anywhere between 90 and 100 seats out of 119,” he said, adding that “good work” is the key mantra for winning the coming polls. “There is no substitute for good work.” Rao said able leadership and a stable government have done the magic for the party in Telangana. “There is solid pro-incumbency in the state as the party has delivered on what it promised,” he claimed.
That’s the reason, the party holds all 32 Zilla Parishad seats in Telangana, 136 out of 142 municipalities and corporations, 9,000 plus out of 12,769 gram panchayats and the list is long, he added.
Asked if the possible alliance of YSR Telangana party with Congress would be a factor in the upcoming Telangana assembly polls, Rao sarcastically aid, “I am sure it will be such a big factor that the Congress might lose whatever little it had.” It is known that YSR Telangana pary chief Sharmila Reddy and her father and erstwhile unified Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister YS Rajashekara Reddy “bitterly opposed the formation of Telangana,” he said.
“If she has an iota of self-respect, she should not have come to Telangana because she and her entire family opposed the formation of Telangana,” he said, and added, “For them to seek votes in Telangana itself is a joke. And for the Congress to accept that is a bigger joke. There is a disaster lying ahead for them.” Asked why the BRS was trying to take credit for the development works in Hyderabad initiated by the former AP CM and TDP chief N Chandrababu Naidu, Rao said, “Naidu was CM back in 2004. We are sitting 20 years later. If somebody says we planted sapling in the 1950s, and Chandrababu reaped it, would he agree? The point is every government ever since formation of Telangana has done its best to create something or other.” “We have expedited and accelerated the progress. We have not taken our foot away from the accelerator in the last nine years,” he said.
In the IT sector, Rao claimed Telangana is ahead of Karnataka in terms of job creation. In the last two years, around 4.50 lakh jobs were created in Hyderabad but in Bengaluru it stood at 1.46 lakh jobs, he said.
In terms of software exports, the numbers have risen from Rs 56,000 crore in 2014 to Rs 2.41 lakh crore now. So the growth has been meteoric, he said. “We have just started. In fact, much more ground to cover. We need to grow and prosper.” Asked to respond to the perception that his government has not focused on development of other cities in Telangana, Rao said,
“That is trash. We won 126 awards from the Union government, the second largest number in Swachh Survekshan ranking. We have focused on rural areas, not just Tier-II cities. Unlike any part of India, we have IT hubs in five cities in the state.” The employment opportunity has been created and infrastructure has been added. The state is growing at a good speed, he added.
