PM Narendra Modi addressed a rally in Telangana's Nizamabad today.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi today told Telangana that it was providential that they were having early elections - that way, they would get free of their problems earlier. In Telangana to campaign for the December 7 elections, the Prime Minister took on Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao, saying he was as much a follower of dynastic rule as the Congress. And much like the Congress, he has failed to bring any development in the state, the Prime Minister said, accusing the two parties of playing a "friendly match" in the election.
Pointing out that Chief Minister Rao had been a minister in the UPA government, PM Modi said the TRS chief did his "apprenticeship" under the Congress. The TRS, he said, was a "Xerox copy" of the Congress. "There is no internal democracy in both parties. Both practice minority appeasement politics," he added.
"The chief minister of Telangana and his family thinks they can get away with doing no work like the Congress.... They have adopted the style of the Congress which ruled for 50-52 years without doing anything. But that cannot happen now," he told the crowd at a rally in Nizamabad, a city 175 km from Hyderabad that's represented in Lok Sabha by Mr Rao's daughter K Kavitha.
The three-way battle for Telangana -- in which the BJP is up against the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi and the combined forces of the Congress and Chandrababu Naidu's Telugu Desam Party - will be held on December 7.
He also accused the Chief Minister of willfully staying away from the Centre's healthcare programme because of his own insecurities.
"This chief minister feels so insecure...he trusts astrologers, does puja, ties nimbu-mirchi (to ward off evil)," the Prime Minister said. "So when we introduced Ayushman Bharat Yojana, he decided not to join it. He feared people will reject him if Modicare comes into force.
He did injustice to the poor people of the state," PM Modi said.
As part of its efforts to get a grip on the southern states, the BJP, which won nine seats in Telangana in 2014, is contesting all 119 seats this time. The campaign has been high pitch -- after a recent whirlwind tour by party chief Amit Shah, PM Modi landed in the state today.
Later today, he is expected to address a rally in Mahbubnagar. He will return to the state on Monday to address a rally at Hyderabad's Lal Bahadur Shastri Stadium.