Hyderabad: Hitting out at the BJP, Animal Husbandry Minister Talasani Srinivas Yadav questioned the BJP’s motive behind contesting the elections to the posts of the Mayor and Deputy Mayor despite not having adequate numbers. He wondered it was an attempt at preventing the democractic process of Mayor election or just an agenda to play the victim card in a political blame game. He pointed out that the entire nation had witnessed how the BJP had prevented democratically elected governments and even dethroned a few in its power game.
Speaking to mediapersons at Telangana Bhavan, the TRS headquarters here on Friday, Srinivas Yadav said the BJP which has 47 corporators and two ex-officio members in the GHMC Council of 150 corporators, contested for both the posts. “Why was Secunderabad MP and Union Minister G Kishan Reddy absent, if the BJP was confident of winning both the posts? If they were not sure about their win, what prompted the BJP to contest the elections without adequate numbers? Were they planning to split the majority party as they did in Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka?” he questioned.
The Minister also ridiculed the conspiracy and collusion theories being floated by the BJP following the AIMIM extending its support to the TRS candidates in the elections. He said the council members were free to vote for any candidate they choose. “AIMIM voted for TRS as our candidates were better than the BJP’s. This has happened even in Parliament on several occasions. Moreover, we had clear majority and could have won these elections easily,” he pointed out. He stated that the TRS did not offer the Deputy Mayor post to AIMIM and the party cannot be blamed for a tweet posted by AIMIM president and MP Asaduddin Owaisi.
Further, Srinivas Yadav stated that the BJP had no moral right to speak about political alliances since the party had entered into an unholy alliance with its arch rival Congress during the Manikonda and Makthal municipal polls last year. “The BJP leaders should control their language. Before they open their mouth or resort to physical attacks on the TRS cadre next time, they should remember that the TRS has a cadre of over 60 lakh,” he cautioned. He felt that the Opposition parties were unhappy with the decision of Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao to hand over the reigns of GHMC to women. He stated that the TRS has been giving priority to Backward Classes in political leadership since the State formation and for the first time, a woman corporator from the Backward Classes was fielded to the Mayor’s post reserved for women from General category.
Government Whip Balka Suman, MLA Danam Nagender, MLC M Sreenivas Reddy and other leaders were present.