BJP induced Munugode bypoll out of greed: Harish Rao

HYDERABAD: Telangana Finance and Health Minister Harish Rao has alleged that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government at the Centre had induced the Munugode by-election out of greed to deceive and bully the people of Telangana with its divisive politics. He said that it was using all sorts of power to win the by-election, wasting public money for unnecessary elections.

Addressing a press conference along with Government Chief Whip MS Prabhakar Rao, MLC Gangadar and MLA Muta Gopal at the TRS Bhavan here on Sunday, the Minister, in his response to false allegations levelled by the BJP leaders over the last two days, slammed the Central government in general and the saffron party in particular.

Rao fumed at the state BJP president for alleging that the TRS was distributing Rs 40,000 for a vote in Munugode and said that it was the BJP that was wooing the people of the constituency by promising sops. The minister alleged that the BJP had bought as many as 200 Brezza cars and 2,000 motorcycles to entice the people and asserted that he had the information regarding it. He said that he would take up the issue with the Central Election Commission.

The Siddipet MLA has called on people to see what the Telangana government and the Centre havw done to the state before voting. Coming down hard at the BJP's Rajagopal Reddy, Harish made severe comments stating that the latter had brought the election to garner the Rs 15,000 crore contract and providing meters to the farmers to win the elections and called on the people to realise the fact that the Centre would set up meters if BJP won the by-election.

Reacting to the BJP's tantrik remarks, the finance minister felt that there was nothing for the BJP to talk about and hence resorted to such filthy remarks, which were baseless. Further, the minister alleged that it was the BJP that was playing black magic with divisive politics in the name of religion and caste. He said that the BJP government in Uttar Pradesh had established a Varanasi Hindu university for training in black magic and asked Bandi Sanjay to join the university.

Not sparing Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitaraman, Harish said that the latter had stooped low and made baseless comments against the Telangana government. Asserting that the Union minister's comments on the Kaleshwaram project and Ayushman Bharath were baseless, the Minister challenged Nirmala Sitaraman to release a white paper on the recruitment of Central government jobs.

Harish Rao condemned the criticism on the BRS and recalled that they had faced a lot of humiliation in the past at the height of the separate statehood agitation. "Yet, we bounced back and ruled the state," he said. He expressed confidence that the same thing would be repeated with the BRS, which, he claimed, would rule the country in the near future. He concluded that the TRS would register a massive victory in Munugode with the welfare schemes being implemented by the state government.