Hyderabad: Claiming that a coalition government would be formed post the Lok Sabha elections with neither the NDA nor UPA getting a majority, TRS working president K T Rama Rao Thursday said his party can ensure heavy flow of funds for Telangana if it won 16 seats.
The Telangana Rashtra Samithi leader also insisted that the popularity graph of Prime Minister Narendra Modi was waning as seen in BJP’s defeat in Rajasthan and other states in the assembly elections in December last year.
“If five-six regional parties or like-minded parties come together…if we can win 17 seats from Telangana, we (TRS) 16 and our friend Asaduddin Owaisi (AIMIM) will anyway win Hyderabad (Lok Sabha)…a situation of Telangana people deciding who should sit in Delhi’s chair will definitely come… Then funds would come like a flood,” he said.
The total number of Lok Sabha seats in Telangana is 17. Rao, who was addressing a TRS meeting at Warangal, in preparation for the coming Lok Sabha polls, said surveys conducted by national-level media organisations showed that neither NDA nor UPA was in a position to form the government on its own.
Citing the surveys, he claimed the NDA and UPA may not get more than 150 and 100 seats, respectively. The atmosphere in the country was not the same as in 2014, he said adding people have understood after five years that Modi “can give good speeches, but cannot do anything that can bring a change in the lives of common people.”
Modi did not agree to the requests of Telangana to give national status to an irrigation project or funds to schemes though the NITI Aayog made recommendations to the effect, he alleged. Congress MPs would not be able to do anything substantial either as they need to obtain permission from Delhi (party high command) for everything, Rao charged.
“If Rahul Gandhi says sit, it is sit, and stand, if he says stand,” he said. Speaking at another preparatory meeting for Bhongir Lok Sabha constituency, Rama Rao said people would realise after five years that the Modi government has done nothing for people though they had voted for Modi in 2014 with great hopes. He said Telangana had been neglected in various spheres as leaders in Delhi feel they don’t need it.
“If Narendra Modi is Prime Minister, bullet train would go from Delhi to Mumbai, touching entire Gujarat. It does not come to Hyderabad, Telangana. Bullet rail. Because, they feel they don’t need us,” Rama Rao said. The bullet train would come to Telangana if the state decided who would rule the country, he added.