Govt. not in a mood to get trapped in ‘God’ controversy: KTR

‘Freebies’ are necessary for peaceful society, says TRS working president

Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) working president and IT Minister K.T. Rama Rao has said that the government is in no mood to get trapped in the competition of ‘whose God is the greatest’.

In a direct attack on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), he said those who have failed to deliver in their governance were harping on ‘Halal, Hijab and Munwar Farooqui’ controversies to divert people’s attention as they don’t have answers on development of the country and bettering people’s lives.

“I want to know which God wants their followers to believe in violence and hatred,” he asked while speaking at a programme at the Dr. B.R. Ambedkar Open University here.

Mr. KTR, son of Chief Minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao, hit out at the critics of the ‘freebie culture’ and the opposition to it. He said the so-called freebies were necessary for a ‘Third world’ country like India. If the basic needs of the vulnerable section were not taken care of, society would have to bear the brunt of their restlessness, he said.

Rich and upper middle class should realise that they could be safe only when the marginalised sections were peaceful, he said referring to the Left wing extremism that was strong a couple decades back.

Mr. KTR also targeted the Centre stating that the Union government destroyed the Indian economy with silly decisions such as demonetisation and creating unrest in the society to cover up its failures. However, the story of Telangana was a different one, and despite the Centre’s non-cooperation, the Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) had increased to ₹11.55 lakh crore from ₹5.6 lakh crore.

There is a 128% growth and these are figures from the Central Government’s Department of Programmes and Statistics. The per capita income of Telangana in 2014 was ₹1.24 lakh and today it stands at ₹2.79 lakh while the country’s per capita income figure is just ₹1.49 lakh, he said.