Although it has been a while since the BRS’ supremo and Telangana Chief Minister Kalvakuntla Chandrasekhar Rao had relaunched the erstwhile Telangana Rashtra Samithi as a national party, renaming it as BRS, and himself as a national
leader – desh ki neta – who is going to bring a qualitative change in the nation’s politics and governance, the BRS is not contesting a single
seat in Karnataka.
Here is a tale of two governments ruling two adjacent states in India. One has a double engine sarkar, while a regional party under the total control of a single family governs the other. You guessed right! The first state is Karnataka which has a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government and is going to the polls in four days. The second is our own Telangana, ruled by Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS).
Although it has been a while since the BRS’ supremo and Telangana Chief Minister Kalvakuntla Chandrasekhar Rao (KCR) had relaunched the erstwhile Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) as a national party, renaming it as BRS, and himself as a national leader – desh ki neta – who is going to bring a qualitative change in the nation’s politics and governance, the BRS is not contesting a single seat in Karnataka. Though the party is not contesting the elections directly, for obvious reasons, the BRS party leaders are rumoured to be discreetly helping candidates and parties against the BJP.
With the BJP’s strength growing in Telangana every day and its leaders promising a doubleengine sarkar led by BJP to replace the BRS family rule, the BRS leadership is keen on discrediting the concept using Karnataka as an example. KT Rama Rao (KTR) – the son of the Chief Minister, the party’s working president and Minister in his father’s cabinet – has been leading the charge on this front for a while, using social media platforms, especially Twitter.
Wading into the Karnataka election campaign, KTR posted a tweet quoting a tweet reporting on the Hanuman Chalisa recital by BJP leaders in Karnataka to protest the Congress’ promise to ban Bajrang Dal if it comes to power. The tweet read: “5 years of Double Engine & Nothing to show in terms of performance & Delivery to people Intellectually Bankrupt & Outrageously Corrupt BJP will be shown the door”. The thrust of his argument is that BJP’s doubleengine sarkar is non-performing and corrupt and thus resorts to communal politics to garner votes. Let’s examine these allegations and see who is making intellectually bankrupt arguments.
Firstly, on performance. While Karnataka has India’s second-fastest growing economy (GSDP) after Gujarat, Telangana does not even figure in the top five fastest-growing states list. According to the latest Reserve Bank of India data, Andhra Pradesh has grown faster than Telangana since the state’s division. It is not only past growth, but Karnataka, by all indications, will continue to grow at a rapid pace even in the future, thanks to the efforts of its doubleengine sarkar in attracting investment.
Last year, Karnataka set a record by receiving half of the entire FDI into India – a whopping 1.6 lakh crore. In comparison, Telangana, under the leadership of its IT & Industries Minister – KTR himself, could not attract even a tenth of that number. Further, the BJP government in Karnataka could keep the inflation rate much lower than the national average. In comparison, Telangana consistently outranked every other state, with the highest inflation in the country.
Not just in investments and inflation management, the government in Karnataka consistently outperformed the BRS government in Telangana on indicators like the unemployment rate, growth of the startup ecosystem and the number of unicorns produced – more than 40 versus 2, and in seizing opportunities from the global manufacturing shift away from China while creating lakhs of jobs for its youth and women.
The doubleengine government has helped the state and the entire country – Karnataka contributes the second-highest GST and third-highest Income Tax among all Indian states.
Secondly, the BJP has always stood against discrimination and segregation based on religion – be it the Uniform Civil Code, Article 370, school uniform, or the position against reservations based on faith. It has consistently advocated respect for all religions and their God(s) and Goddess(es). In Karnataka, Congress, a party whose leaders pushed the ‘saffron terror’ narrative earlier, which thrives on appeasement politics like the BRS in Telangana, promised to ban the Bajrang Dal. It was a move solely aimed at appeasing those crestfallen by the ban imposed on the Popular Front of India (PFI). KTR’s tweet amply demonstrates where his sympathies lie.
And finally, on corruption. While the opposition ran a vicious campaign to malign the doubleengine BJP government in Karnataka, they have neither filed cases, gone to the courts, nor approached Karnataka’s powerful Lokayukta with any information to substantiate their politically motivated allegations. Regarding Telangana, KTR must listen to his father’s words while addressing a gathering of senior BRS leaders during the recent party plenary. KCR all but said that his government is a 30 per cent sarkar.
KTR’s words more aptly describe Telangana’s non-performance, corrupt and communal family rule, and the voters of Telangana will indeed show BRS the door in the upcoming elections.
(The author is BJP
TS spokesperson)
