Modi tears into Cong, TRS over 'family rule', vote bank politics

Nizamabad/Mahbubnagar: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday lacerated Telangana's ruling TRS and the Congress for perpetuating "family rule" and pursuing "vote bank" politics that harm development like "termites".

Calling the two parties two sides of the same coin, Modi recalled caretaker Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao's "apprenticeship" with the Congress, and claimed they were playing a "friendly match" in the assembly polls.

He invoked Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel to claim had the political titan not been there Indians would have needed Pakistani visa to visit Hyderabad, the present-day capital of Telangana. Patel was widely credited for the annexation of the princely state of Hyderabad whose Muslim ruler did not want to join the Indian union.

"The chief minister of Telangana and his family think they can get away with doing no work like the Congress...They have adopted the style of the Congress which ruled for 50-52 years without doing anything. But that cannot happen now," Modi told an election rally in Nizamabad, as he took the poll battle to Rao's turf.

Rao's daughter K Kavitha represents Nizamabad in the Lok Sabha.

"Congress and TRS are two faces of the same coin. Both parties are competing against each other on who tells more lies.

"TRS and Congress are family-ruled parties playing a friendly match in Telangana polls," he said, adding it was a "big joke" that UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi and Congress president Rahul Gandhi assailed the TRS for being a "family party" at an election rally last week.

Modi sought to appeal to "Telangana pride" when he referred to AIMIM leader Akbaruddin Owaisi's recent remark that whoever became the chief minister of Telangana or undivided Andhra Pradesh had to bow before his party.

"A leader recently said whoever became the CM of Andhra Pradesh-Telangana had to be at his feet (kadmon ke neeche). You fought for Telangana for your self-respect. Will you want a CM who bows at the feet of some leader instead of the people of Telangana?" the prime minister told another rally at Mahbubnagar.

K Chandrasekhar Rao's TRS has friendly ties with AIMIM of Hyderabad MP Asaduddin Owaisi.

While accusing Rao of "destroying" Telangana through his government's policies and not fulfilling his promises to people, Modi targeted the Congress for silencing the aspirations of the state for two decades with "bullets".

"Take a pledge in the memory of the martyrs to Telangana's cause...don't let those who fired bullets for two decades (to quell the agitation for separate Telangana). Don't allow them to enter the state. Not one Congress candidate should win. You take this vow for the sake of Telangana martyrs," Modi told the Mahbubnagar rally.

Amid reports that the Congress was preparing a manifesto that would envisage separate schools and hospitals for Muslims, Modi said the only Mantra that the BJP followed was "Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas" and was against vote bank politics.

"BJP has just one Mantra- Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas. We believe in inclusive growth. Vote bank politics has damaged development like termite," he said.

Development, he said, was a casualty wherever vote bank politics and politics of casteism, communalism and nepotism have flourished.

"Both Congress and the TRS are two sides of the same coin. Both indulge in vote bank politics, both do casteist politics. Congress makes brothers fight brothers, Hindus fight Muslims, villages fight towns. TRS does the same thing.

"TRS's talk of (raising) Muslim reservations is vote bank politics which the Congress has been doing for a long time," Modi said.