The war of words between the Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) intensified after Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao skipped the Prime Minister Narendra Modi's programme of inaugurating the Statue of Equality in Hyderabad.
On February 5, the Prime Minister inaugurated the 216-feet tall 'Statue of Equality' that commemorates the 11th-century Bhakti Saint Sri Ramanujacharya.
KCR was not present at the Hyderabad airport to receive PM Modi and chose to send Minister of Fisheries Talasani Srinivas Yadav as the Minister-in-Waiting to receive the Prime Minister.
The Chief Minister and his son were conspicuously absent from the inauguration event.
A day after the event the son of Telangana Chief Minister, K Taraka Rama Rao, making a jibe at PM Modi on Twitter said, "The Icon of Partiality unveiled Statue of Equality and irony just died a billion deaths!!"
Not to hold back, Union Minister for Culture, Tourism, and Development of North Eastern Region, G Kishan Reddy reacted sharply and said that KCR and KTR valorise Nizam whose Razakar army massacred Hindus at will and abuses PM whose only dharma is 'Sab ka Saath sab ka vikas'.
"If the police is removed for 15 minutes, we Muslims will finish 100 crore Hindus. CM KCR and KTR endorse such statements by aligning with Owaisi and MIM. They valorise Nizam whose Razakar army massacred Hindus at will. He then abuses PM whose only dharma is 'Sab ka Saath sab ka vikas'," Reddy said.
He further the Prime Minister is used to such political attacks and urged to spare Saint Ramanuja from this.
"It is unfortunate that a spiritual event meant to celebrate the ideas of equality as enunciated by Sri Ramanujacharya is being politicized. Even by TRS party standards, this is a new low. Our PM is used to such political attacks but please spare Saint Ramanuja from this," he added.
Initially, after the budget announcement in the Parliament by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, Telangana Chief Minister held a 2-hour long press conference where he criticised the Union Budget.
The Chief Minister claimed that various allocations in the budget were well below previous allocations and took specific examples such as the Fertiliser subsidy, MGNREGA budget allocations, Health sector allocations and allocations for the Food subsidy.
At that time, G Kishan Reddy had rebutted the points made by KCR.
The Union Minister pointed towards the previous year's budget and said that in various programmes including in Fertilizer Subsidy, Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005 (MGNREGA) and Health budget, the allocations have either increased or have been kept stable compared to previous budgets and in no place were there any reductions.
Stirring up a controversy, Rao had said that the time has come that the Constitution in India needs to be rewritten.
"We have to rewrite our Constitution. Nayi Soch, Naya Samvidhan should be brought in. The Constitution needs to be strengthened," he said while addressing a press conference on the union budget.
Calling Prime Minister Narendra Modi "short-sighted", Rao said, "BJP (at Centre) needs to be removed and thrown in the Bengal sea (Bay of Bengal). We will do whatever is needful for the country; will not sit silent. This is democracy. Our PM is very short-sighted."
His statement led to an uproar from various opposition parties and Dalit organisations who stated that this revealed the Chief Minister's hatred for them.
( With inputs from ANI )
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