Telangana not to get trapped in competition on God, says TRS

Hyderabad, Aug 27 (IANS) Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) working president K.T. Rama Rao on Saturday decried the attempts to play politics over religion and made it clear that Telangana government is in no mood to get trapped into competition on whose god is the greatest.

Targeting the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), he said those who have failed to deliver in their governance were harping on 'Halal, Hijab and Munawar Faruqui' controversies to divert the people's attention.

He said since they have no answer on the development of the country and bettering people's lives, they are raking controversies.

"I want to know which god wants their followers to believe in violence and hatred," he asked while addressing a programme at B.R. Ambedkar Open University here.

KTR, as Rama Rao is popularly known, pointed out that in 1987, India and China had the same size GDP of $470 billion.

"Today China is $16 trillion while India is at $3 trillion. China's GDP is 5.8 times higher. Where are we? We are fighting over what is your religion, what is your caste, what you should eat and what you should wear," he said.

He said though Telangana's population is only 2.5 per cent of the total population of the country, its contribution to India's GDP is five per cent. "This is because we are progressive and forward thinking state. We have decided not to look at whose god is greatest," he said.

The minister for industry and information technology hit out at the critics of freebies. He said the so-called freebies were necessary for a third-world country like India.

"We may call ourselves vishwa guru but the fact remains that we are still a third-world country. Majority of our population is below the poverty line. We may like it or not but the fundamental duty of a democratically elected government in a third-world country is to take care of vulnerable sections," he said.

He warned that if the basic needs of the vulnerable section were not take care of, society would have to bear the brunt of their restlessness.

"Rich and upper middle class should realise that they could be safe and there will be law and order when there is no restlessness in the society," he said and recalled that the country has already seen lots of problems.

KTR said the attempts to do away with welfare schemes by terming it 'freebie culture' will have disastrous consequences. He wondered if Rs 12 lakh crore corporate tax waived by the government of India was not freebies.

KTR slammed the Narendra Modi-led government saying it destroyed the Indian economy with silly decisions such as demonetisation and creating unrest in the society to cover up its failures.

He claimed that the story of Telangana was a different one as it made rapid strides in the last eight years despite the Centre's non-cooperation and despite silly decisions such demonetisation.

He pointed out that Telangana's Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) had increased to Rs 11.55 lakh crore from Rs 5.6 lakh crore in 2014.

There was a 128 per cent growth and these are figures from the Central government's department of programmes and statistics.

The per capita income of Telangana in 2014 was Rs 1.24 lakh and today, it stands at Rs 2.79 lakh while the country's per capita income figure is just Rs 1.49 lakh, he said.

KTR spoke in detail on the rapid strides made by the state in water, funds and jobs -- the three major issues during Telangana movement.