Modi appeals to Telangana to have a 'double-engine' government

HYDERABAD: Prime Minister Narendra Modi has appealed to people Telangana to elect a "double-engine sarkar", meaning a BJP Government at the Centre as well as in the State. While all leaders, including Amit Shah, J P Nadda, Piyush Goyal, Yogi Adityanath and Bandi Sanjay launched a trenchant attack on the TRS regime in Telangana and Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao, Modi has cleverly chosen to skip taking the names of TRS or KCR.

Modi, interestingly, dwelt at length on development and welfare schemes – from Regional Ring Road to Mega Textile Park in Telangana; and from free covid vaccines to ration and Jandhan accounts without discrimination and with service motto – and thanked the large number of youths for endorsing the BJP Government's policies and programmes and reposing their confidence in the party.

Why Modi did not even touch KCR with a barge pole? At the grand finale of the two-day jamboree of the party in Hyderabad, if the Prime Minister launched an attack on KCR, he would have obviously declared KCR as the main rival of the BJP across India. This would have obliquely bolstered the chances of launching the much-talked-about Bharat Rashtriya Samithi (BRS), KCR's speculated new national party.

The public meeting conducted in a specially-erect pandals by providing chairs for every one to sit was indeed an effort on the sly to camouflage the fact that it was dwarfed to a limit-audience affair. The sprawling Parade Grounds would have accommodated many more times the gathering that thronged Modi's public meeting.

In the last eight years, the Centre had initiated various policies for the welfare of the poor, Dalit, backward classes, and tribal people, evoking increased trust in the BJP governments across different States in the country.

"A recent report shows that women's share in depositing money in banks has increased. It's even better in rural areas. Survey says that women's participation in having economic assets on their names has risen. It became possible as we connected them to banking system," he pointed out.

The Prime Minister claimed that the BJP was witnessing a surge in support from the people of Telangana. The development works taken by the BJP had benefited people across all sections of the society especially farmers, youngsters, women and the marginalized communities. The Prime Minister talked about technology development, teaching of professional courses in mother tongue and the various high-end research institutions in Hyderabad.

Striking a religious chord with the people, Modi spoke about Telanagna spread amid Sri Ram Temple in Badhrachalam, Lakshminarasimha temple at Yadadri, Jogulamba in Alampur, and Bhadrakali in Warangal, and said: "This land has divine blessings." Touchiung a regional sentiment chord of audience, he referred to the historical and architectural splendour of the UN-recognised Ramappa Temple and brought in contextually the reference of Ramadasu and Somandri.

He made certain claims that threw the people into doubt as he listed out projects that were essentially part of the TRS schemes.

Subtly turning to politics, he referred to high vote share polled by the BJP in 2019 Lok Sabha elections, which indicated the people's trust towards the party. After listing out several national highway and road projects and how they progressed in Telangana, he came up with jugglery of five Fs -- farm to fibre, fibre to factory, factory to fashion and fashion foreign in the context of setting up seven mega textile parks in the country of which one would be in Telangana.