Hyderabad KCR said his government had been adopting pro-farmer policies and introduced several initiatives to uplift the farmers, whereas the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party had miserably failed to address the farmers’ issues. (HT Photo)

Bharat Rashtra Samithi president and Telangana chief minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao on Wednesday sought the blessings of the people of the state for a third successive term for his government which, he claimed, had addressed the needs of every section of the society in the last two terms.

KCR, as the chief minister is popularly called, virtually kickstarted the election campaign, two days after the declaration of his party candidates for 115 out of 119 assembly seats, by addressing a rally “Pragati Sankharaavam” (Blowing the conch of progress) at Medak in the evening.

“It is time for the people to judge what is true and what is not. They should show their real power when it matters most. Please compare the performance of the BRS government with the previous governments and vote accordingly,” he said.

KCR said his government had been adopting pro-farmer policies and introduced several initiatives to uplift the farmers, whereas the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party had miserably failed to address the farmers’ issues.

He said that while the BJP-led NDA government at the Centre had been insisting on installation of smart power meters for agricultural pump sets, the Congress was advocating power supply to agriculture only for three hours.

The chief minister said the central government had denied grants to the extent of ₹25,000 crore to Telangana for not following its condition of installation of smart meters to the agriculture pump sets.

Taking a dig at the Congress for making tall promises for the assembly elections, KCR pointed out that the grand old party had failed to deliver on many promises it had made during the assembly elections in Karnataka.

“In Karnataka, the Congress government is barely giving seven-hour power to the agriculture sector, whereas in Telangana, our government is giving round-the-clock power supply to farmers free of cost,” he said.

KCR further slammed the Congress for proposing to roll back the Dharani portal, the state government’s official land records management portal, which he said had removed several hurdles and made the land transactions simple.

“Due to the Dharani portal, farmers are now able to complete the land registration process within 15 minutes and the mutation process in 5 minutes while in the past, the process was “unpredictable and full of corruption,” he said.

He pointed out how Medak had been deprived of irrigation facilities during the Congress and the Telugu Desam Party regimes in the past. “In the last nine years of Telangana, Medak had become fertile,” he asserted.

Earlier in the day, he inaugurated the BRS party office, the district superintendent of police’s office, and the integrated district offices complex in Medak.

Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee president A Revanth Reddy lashed out at KCR for saying that the Congress had done nothing for the state in its previous regimes.

“He should go back and study the history of the state. Who built several irrigation projects, including Nagarjunasagar, when the BRS was not even born? In fact, KCR has misappropriated thousands of crores in the name of Kaleshwaram project. While the Congress government had built the outer ring road, KCR government has sold it for ₹7500 crore,” he alleged.

Telangana BJP chief Kishan Reddy on Wednesday said KCR should apologise to people as he failed to implement 33 per cent reservation for women in the assembly polls while releasing the list.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR Srinivasa Rao Apparasu Srinivasa Rao is Senior Assistant Editor based out of Hyderabad covering developments in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana . He has over three decades of reporting experience. ...view detail