Revanth sees ‘Prashant Kishor strategy’ in the attacks on BRS leaders to gain sympathy

Telangana Congress president A. Revanth Reddy claimed the attacks on BRS candidates is akin to strategies of Prashanth Kishor, to generate sympathy. He questioned why BRS resorted to the damaging campaign if not for fear of losing forthcoming assembly elections in the State.

Telangana Congress president A. Revanth Reddy said the series of sudden ‘attacks’ on the Bharat Rashtra Samiti (BRS) candidates have a mark of poll strategist Prashant Kishor, to generate sympathy for the ruling party candidates after having realised that the party was losing the Telangana Assembly Elections-2023.

“Prashant Kishor is known to plan such incidents to generate sympathy. Irrespective of the political party he has worked with, the attacks are part of a common strategy. We have seen this in West Bengal also,” he said at a press conference. Referring to the knife attack on Dubbak BRS candidate Kotha Prabhakar Reddy and assault on Achampet candidate Guvvala Balaraju, he said the BRS tried to blame the Congress and create a narrative as per the directions of their poll strategists.”

Mr. Reddy wanted to know why the police is not revealing the remand report of the accused Raju in the Kotha Prabhakar Reddy case. “Right after the attack, even Chief Minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao blamed the Congress in public meetings, trying to link the Congress party to the attack. The entire BRS leadership took the same line. However, the Siddipet Police Commissioner informed the media that the accused wanted to create a sensation with the attack,” he said, asking why is the BRS resorting to such damaging campaign if not for the fear of losing elections.

He said that the attack on Guvvala Balaraju is a similar case, adding that Mr. Balaraju was known for his aggressive behaviour. Mr. Reddy said that Mr. Balaraju slapped a sitting MLA in Mahabubnagar Zilla Parishad meeting, attacked a Dalit for questioning him, and phone recordings of his threats to his opponents and abusing his own party leaders are in the public domain. “Should the Congress keep quiet if he is distributing money?” asked the TPCC chief.

The Congress chief said Municipal Administration Minister K.T. Rama Rao claimed some attacks on the BRS are likely apart from social media campaigns to defame the government. The Election Commission of India and the local election officials should find out the information KTR has about these ‘impending attacks’, he said.

He said that KTR circulated a fake letter in the name of Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister D. K. Shiv Kumar claiming the Karnataka government was inducing industries in Hyderabad to come to Bengaluru. After a case was filed in the Cyber Police station he has gone completely silent on it. Similarly, some people from Karnataka were hired to blame the Congress government there but when Congress workers here confronted them, they spilled the beans on how they were brought to Telangana paying money.

Referring to former Karnakata Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy’s press meet in Bengaluru on the Karnataka government’s promises, he questioned the need for Finance Minister T. Harish Rao to personally call up news channels’ offices to show it live in Telangana. These conspiracies only showcase how BRS was afraid, he said.