Used Muslims, Dalits as vote banks: Telangana CM KCR blasts Congress

HYDERABAD: Railing against the Congress in poll-bound Telangana, Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao said he wondered if the party has done anything for the Muslims and Dalits other than using them as 'vote banks'.

Addressing a public meeting at Wanaparthy on Thursday, the Telangana CM and the ruling Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) president said the Congress should come clean on whether it opened a single medical college in the district.

"He stated that the BRS government has brought 5 medical colleges to the erstwhile Mahabubnagar district," a statement quoted the CM as saying. "Has the Congress not used Muslims as a vote bank without doing any work for them? We are producing diamonds in our residential schools today. We also have residential schools for Muslims, Dalits, Girijans, and the backward classes."

"Congress has always used and exploited Dalits as a vote bank but the BRS government is giving Dalit Bandhu (direct cash benefit scheme)," the CM said.

He added that the BRS government was giving 'Rythu Bandhu' for the welfare of farmers. Further hitting out at the Congress, he said, "Has Congress ever given money back to farmers?"

The Congress, which is bidding to oust the BRS from power, has been involved in a war of words with the ruling party and bitter poll rhetoric against them since the polling date was notified.

Meanwhile, addressing another public meeting at Achampet in Nagarkurnool district, the CM said the Congress never thought about Dalits before.

"Today, Rahul Gandhi, Revanth Reddy, and Bhatti Vikramarka are saying that if they come to power, they will remove Dharani. Today, the government has all the land details and account details because of Dharani. Today, you are getting Rythu Bandhu. You are directly getting money for the crops you sell. There are no lobbyists and you do not need any certificate for it. All this is possible because of Dharani," CM KCR said.

"After independence, the Congress was in power for years at the Centre and across several states. They never thought about the welfare of Dalits in all these years. They merely used Dalits as a vote bank. Had Dalit Bandhu been started during (Jawaharlal) Nehru's term as PM, then the state of the Dalits would have been a lot better than what it is," he added.

Claiming that no other leader in the country's political history, either a CM or a PM, even thought about or conceived a scheme like 'Dalit Bandhu'. Earlier, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, while addressing a rally at Jagtial in poll-bound Telangana, said the people had hope that with the formation of Telangana as a separate state, the 'Janata' will rule but, instead, only "one family" has been ruling the State.

"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. The entire public funds of the state, whether it be from land, sand or alcohol, is under the control of a single family."

Telangana will poll for the Assembly on November 30 and the counting of votes, along with those of four other poll-bound states, on December 3.

The southern state is set to witness an intriguing triangular contest between the BRS, Congress, and BJP. In the previous Assembly elections in 2018, the BRS won 88 of the 119 seats, hogging 47.4 per cent of the total vote share.

The Congress finished a distant second with 19 seats and a vote share of 28.7 per cent.