Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekar Rao on Wednesday equated Congress with the BJP while trying to stitch a non Congress and non BJP coalition in the presence of leaders of AAP, Left and SP at the first mammoth rally of the BRS at Khammam. He said the Congress and the BJP only indulge in verbal fights and blame each other.

Only leaders of regional parties keen to keep both the BJP and Congress away were present at the meeting.

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Rao batted for nationalisation opposing the privatisation policy of the Narendra Modi Government and made a host of promises including reservation for women, tap water to every household and financial benefits to Dalits and farmers if BRS is voted to power.

Addressing the rally in the presence of Left, AAP and SP leaders, Rao said, “BJP and Congress are the same. They just blame each other and  engage in verbal fight only.”

Criticising Modi, he further said, “Your policy is that of privatization, ours is nationalization.” Ppposing the disinvestment move on LIC, the chief minister made fun of the prime minister’s dubbing his Make in India slogan to “Make of India”. He said it was the joke of India with mushrooming Chinabazars everywhere.

He said the BRS was born for the purpose of serving people and the policies of the party are being drafted.

All three chief ministers present harped on how governors were taking on elected chief ministers with Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal saying, “Why should governors who got such comfortable jobs harass chief ministers, it is Modiji who is giving them the instructions to disturb.”

He added when the prime minister is thinking of disturbing the chief ministers how can the country develop? However, today four chief ministers met but they spoke of development instead of politics, said Kejriwal.

Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan described today’s rally as “the beginning of resistance” against BJP.

Taking a dig at RSS-BJP, he said: “Those in power at the Centre today were not in power during the national freedom struggle and thereby do not know the values that the country has been built on. So they seek to alter the basic structure.”

CPI’s D Raja gave a call for all democratic secular parties to join hands against the Modi government fighting against the BJP with key issues such as health, education and unemployment.

All the three chief ministers, Pinarayi Vijayan of Kerala, Arvind Kejriwal of Delhi and Bhagwat Singh Mann reached Hyderabad yesterday evening.

Today, Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao met the leaders including Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, his Punjab counterpart Bhagwant Singh Mann and Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan along with SP leader Akhilesh Yadav and CPI leader D Raja over breakfast. They then offered special puja in Yadagiri Lakshmi Narasimha Swamy temple before leaving for Khammam in choppers.

The guests accompanied Rao at the inauguration of the new integrated collectorate complex at Khammam and then unveiled phase II of the health scheme Kanti Velugu which is aimed at free eye screening and vision testing for people.