Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi has jumped into the fray to retrieve lost glory of his party in Telangana. But his maiden rally at Sangareddy town on Thursday failed to take off as his strident attack against Telangana Chief Minister and TRS president K. Chandrasekhar Rao (KCR) that he perpetuated interests of his family, boomeranged on the Gandhi scion.
Addressing a mass rally at Sangareddy, 70 km from Hyderabad, Rahul had focused his attack against KCR, saying that only four members of his family had benefited in the last three years of TRS rule. Rahul was referring to the four members of KCR family—KCR himself, his son and IT Minister K.T. Rama Rao (KTR), daughter MP Kavitha and nephew and Irrigation Minister T Harish Rao.
Rahul’s speech was broadly prepared based on inputs from the local Congress leaders who had become helpless spectators as KCR had poached seven of their MLAs and hundreds of local leaders in the past three years, hurting the party which ruled the combined state for almost a decade till 2014. However, Rahul’s comments against the KCR family had met with strong rebuttal from TRS leaders.
“It’s a joke of the millennium that Rahul Gandhi is talking about family rule in Telangana; it is they (the Gandhis) who first laid foundations for the same in the country. We can see the cut-outs of Nehru, Indira, Rajiv and Sonia Gandhi in the grounds where Rahul addressed the rally,” said KTR after the conclusion of the rally.
Other TRS leaders, too, were equally vehement against the Gandhi-Nehru family, which was the first to introduce dynastic politics in the country. “Of all the leaders in the country, Rahul Gandhi is least qualified to talk about family rule as he is a relic of dynastic politics in India. What right he has got to criticise our leader (KCR)?” said Telangna Animal Husbandry Minister T. Srinivas Yadav.
Yadav who spoke to this newspaper on Friday said that the people of Telangana had democratically elected KCR as their Chief Minister in 2014 after he led the separate state agitation for 15 years. Yadav even pointed out that KCR’s children KTR and Kavitha and nephew Harish Rao were also elected by the people by huge margins, as a reward for their participation in the Telangana agitation.
Besides Yadav, several other TRS legislators and party leaders lashed out at Rahul Gandhi for raking up the family rule issue at his meeting, where the latter also mentioned how his late grandmother Indira Gandhi had addressed the public from the same venue. “Rahul, on the one hand, recalls his grandmother, but objects to others from the same family for holding posts,” said TRS leader G. Ramachandra Rao.
Rahul Gandhi’s other criticism that he would ensure Telangana becomes an industrial hub if the Congress comes to power in 2019, too, failed to take off. Gandhi said that he would take care that there would be at least one “Make in Telangana” mark mobile phone, if people elect the Congress. He made the same promise to people in 2014 elections too.
Minister KTR rebutted Rahul’s remarks saying that already three to four mobile handset making companies had set up their units in Telangana and are on the verge of production soon, thus fulfilling the promise of ensuring “Make in Telangana” mobiles. KTR pointed out that the industrial policy of the TRS government was considered the best “not only in India, but also in the entire world”. On the contrary, the Congress government which ruled the combined AP for a decade from 2004 to 2014, had failed to set up any industries in the Sangareddy district (erstwhile Medak district). Incidentally, the Medak Lok Sabha seat was represented by Indira Gandhi from 1980, till she was assassinated in 1984.
Telangana Congress leaders had pinned their hopes on Rahul Gandhi for reviving the party in Telangana. “Rahul Gandhi will be visiting the state frequently from now on. His Sangareddy rally was a success,” Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee president N. Uttam Kumar Reddy told this newspaper on Friday.
Telangana Congress leaders panicked after BJP national president Amit Shah toured the state for three days last month and announced his plans to visit it again for a week in September. Congress was hoping to cash in on the anti-incumbency factor against the KCR government in the next polls, but the entry of BJP into the fray made Congress leaders send SOS to Rahul Gandhi.