Kickstarting the BJP’s campaign ahead of assembly election in Telangana, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, on Sunday, announced the setting up of a national turmeric board and a central tribal university, fulfilling the longstanding demands of the state as he slammed both the BRS and the Congress for running family-oriented parties and thereby stalling the development of the youngest state.

Addressing a massive public rally at Palamuru in Mahabubnagar, the PM said, “The people of Telangana have firmly decided to go for change. Telangana wants change because it wants a visionary and an honest government in the state. Telangana wants change because instead of false promises it wants work on the ground. Telangana wants change because it wants a BJP government.”

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Though he delivered his speech in Hindi it was peppered with the Telugu phrase “na kutumba sabhayalu”, meaning “the members of my family”, not only to address the audience but also as a dig at the Telangana chief minister, K Chandrasekhar Rao, and his family. The PM slammed him saying that the steering of the car (poll symbol of BRS) was in the hands of somebody else. He also blamed the BRS and Congress saying that the two family-run parties have stalled the development of Telangana.

“Both of these family run parties are identified with corruption and commission. Both these parties are run by the same formula – party of the family, by the family and for the family,” he said. “In every big post they either install their own family members or their own people. But BJP is only concerned with the families of common man,” Modi added.

He compared the development work done by the previous Congress government at the Centre and the nine years of his own government. He blamed the BRS government for failing to stop farmers’ suicides and converting the farmers’ welfare schemes into a means of routing their own black money. In the name of setting up irrigation projects there has only been corruption, said Modi.

Announcing that the Centre will set up a central tribal university at Mulugu district at the cost of Rs 900 crore, which will be named after tribal goddesses Samakka and Sarakka, he blamed the state government for delaying in providing land for five years. While the central university was part of the provisions of the Andhra Pradesh Reorganization Act of 2014, the national turmeric board was a poll promise made by the BJP in Nizamabad, in 2019. Modi said, “The Centre has decided to set up a national turmeric board to meet for the benefit of turmeric farmers. It will help farmers to bring in value addition to the supply chain and in setting up the required infrastructure.”

Earlier in the day, he unveiled and laid the foundation stone for projects worth Rs 13,500 crore, including new railway tracks, road projects, LPG pipelines as well as introducing a new train.