TRS calls out BJP bluff on pensions

Hyderabad: The political fire raging in Munugode spread to new domains on Sunday, with BJP candidate Komatireddy Rajgopal Reddy triggering a war of words with an oft-repeated promise of the BJP in bypolls in Telangana, that of hiking Aasara pensions. The Telangana Rashtra Samithi (now Bharat Rashtra Samithi), responding to the promise, called out Reddy’s […]

Hyderabad: The political fire raging in Munugode spread to new domains on Sunday, with BJP candidate Komatireddy Rajgopal Reddy triggering a war of words with an oft-repeated promise of the BJP in bypolls in Telangana, that of hiking Aasara pensions.

The Telangana Rashtra Samithi (now Bharat Rashtra Samithi), responding to the promise, called out Reddy’s bluff and pointed out that BJP candidates were carrying on with ‘jumla’ politics the party was known for.

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Rajgopal Reddy, who earlier tried to take credit for Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao’s announcement in early August of 10 lakh new pensions, this time stoked controversy when he said he would get the Aasara pensions given by the State government hiked from Rs 2,016 to Rs 3,000 if he was elected again from Munugode.

Forgetting that the BJP candidates in the Huzurabad and Dubbaka bypolls had also promised the same but failed to deliver, Rajgopal Reddy said he would speak to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and get the pensions hiked, a line repeated in the previous two bypolls by the BJP.
Calling out the bluff of the BJP candidate, the TRS (BRS) reacted by pointing out that Rajgopal Reddy was promising to get Rs 3,000 from Modi, when the pension in the Prime Minister’s own State of Gujarat was a mere Rs 750.

Finance Minister T Harish Rao, challenging the BJP’s Telangana leaders to first ensure the implementation of Rs 3,000 pension in BJP-ruled States before making such promises elsewhere, also pointed out that the same promise was made during the Dubbaka and Huzurabad bypolls, but was broken even after the people voted for the BJP.

Demanding to know the fate of promises made during the GHMC elections as well, Harish pointed out that the BJP government at the Centre had repeatedly discriminated against Telangana in terms of sanctioning projects and funds over the last eight years.

“The BJP is known for its ‘jumlas’. They make false promises and once voted to power, they make some excuse or the other to escape from implementing them. Their promises are impractical and full of lies. After the BJP’s repeated failure to implement promises, the people of Munugode will not fall for them,” the Minister said.

Reminding that the TRS government had hiked the Aasara pensions from Rs 200 in 2014 to Rs 2,016 in 2019, Harish said Telangana was the only State to extend Aasara pensions to weavers, beedi workers and toddy tappers, along with dialysis and filaria patients, among others.
“The BJP has been deceiving the people of Telangana since it came up with the ‘One Vote-Two State’ resolution. People must not forget how Modi disrespected the formation of Telangana in Parliament and also took away seven mandals from erstwhile Khammam to merge them with Andhra Pradesh, without bothering to inform Telangana,” he said.

Coming down heavily on Rajgopal Reddy for ‘imposing the bypolls on the people of Munugode to justify his greed for money’, Harish said the election was a fight between Rajgopal Reddy’s greed and people’s self-respect.

Urging the people to personally witness the implementation of promises made by the TRS government during the bypolls in Huzurnagar and Nagarjuna Sagar, before casting their votes, the Minister ridiculed the BJP’s State leaders for complaining that Telangana Ministers were campaigning in Munugode.

The BJP leaders, he pointed out, had brought even union Home Minister Amit Shah to campaign in Munugode, and were now jittery when State Ministers were campaigning for the TRS candidate.