Reminding that Telangana has only 17 MP seats, Congress leader P Chidambaram ON tHURSDAY took a jibe at Telangana chief minister and BRS supremo K Chandrasekhar Rao over his claim that the next government at the Centre would be a coalition one with BRS MPs playing a key role in it. Chidamabaram was in Hyderabad to take part in the election campaign.
Speaking to the media he wondered, “Is he (Rao) extending an olive branch to the Congress or the BJP? Let him clarify. We ran two successful coalition governments in Delhi from 2004-2009 and then again in 2009-14.” In a public rally at Nizamabad, where his daughter Kalvakuntla Kavitha would be contesting from in 2024, Rao claimed on Wednesday that BRS will play a key role in the next coalition government. “With 17 MPs, if he can play a key role I wish him well,” said Chidambaram, scoffing KCR’s claims.
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KCR has been attacking the Congress in his rallies blaming it for the woes of Telangana, including the merger of the State of Hyderabad with that of Andhra Pradesh. Chidambaram said that Rao was clearly not “a good student of history,” claiming that there was a people’s movement to merge the two Telugu-speaking regions.
Replying to the BRS allegations that the delay in creation of state by the UPA government led to suicides by Telangana youths, Chidambaram said: “Creating a state or dividing a state is not a child’s play. It cannot be done just like that. A state is created after a movement like in the case of the original Andhra Pradesh. If a state is divided, it is in response to a people’s movement. If some lives were lost we are sorry for that but you cannot hold the central government responsible for that. What about the 4,000 suicides of farmers in Telangana under the KCR government. Who is responsible for that?”
The former Union minister, who has handled both Home and Finance ministries in the past, claimed that the Congress was the flag-bearer of secularism and it will not allow any communal incident under its government, as alleged by the AIMIM and BRS. He denied that the Congress had an “excellent relation” with Owaisi, adding that Salahuddin Owaisi did support the Congress at times.
