Hyderabad: Describing Telangana as the ‘corruption capital’ Congress chief Rahul Gandhi yesterday hit out at the TRS dispensation, alleging that only ‘one family’ government is running the State.
Speaking at a public meeting at Serilingampally here, the Gandhi scion also dared Prime Minister Narendra Modi to come for an open debate on the controversial Rafale deal.
“Today Telangana has become the capital of corruption… wherever you see somebody’s land is snatched, only one-family government is here. Benefits are only for one family”, he said targeting the family of Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao.
The ‘style’ of Modi and Chandrasekhar Rao were the same as they only make tall and empty promises, alleged Gandhi, on his first visit to Telangana after become the party President.
Rao promised land for Dalits and Adivasis, but that was not honoured, he said.
“The government promised double bedroom houses,but in the last four years, not even 5,000 houses were built.In Telangana in the last four years, 4,000 farmers have committed suicide. When Congress was in power (in undivided Andhra Pradesh) it was a revenue surplus State. Today it is deep in debt,” he further said, charging the TRS Government with not fulfilling its poll promises.
He alleged that though there were one lakh job vacancies in the government, the KCR-Government could fill just 10,000. Gandhi’s charges drew a sharp response from Rao, who ‘advised’ him to be more ‘mature’ while making remarks against the government.
“Rahul Gandhi should improve his maturity. He should not read a script written by someone else. He should know the facts about the state’s finances,” he told reporters here.
The Chief Minister said nearly one lakh jobs have been announced by the State Public Service Commission, a fact which Rahul Gandhi could verify. He said the Congress leader could also verify the status of the two-bedroom house scheme being implemented across Telangana.
Gandhi urged the people to vote the Congress to power, assuring them that once the party comes back to the helm of affairs, it would fulfil all promises made to both Andhra Pradesh and Telangana during the bifurcation.
Claiming that industrialist Anil Ambani was Modi’s friend, he alleged that the Rafale contract was snatched from HAL and given to the businessman despite his inexperience in the field even as he defaulted on Rs 45,000 crore to various banks.
The Ambani group, which has been in the eye of a raging political storm over the fighter jet deal, had yesterday denied receiving any contract from the Defence Ministry and said “unfounded and incorrect” allegations were being made to “mislead people and cloud the issue”.
“Wherever, either in Parliament house or anywhere, keep Modi on one side and keep me on another side,we will debate on Rafale. The truth will come out what is right and what is wrong and where the ‘theft’ took place,” Gandhi said.
He alleged that Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had misled the public when she said the new price of the fighter aircraft could not be disclosed due to a secrecy clause in the contract. Gandhi said when he spoke to the French President during his visit to India, he was told that there was no such secrecy clause and that India was free to disclose it to anybody.