Attempt to win over rural voters: TRS

​Hyderabad: Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) leaders on Friday said that the 2019 budget by the NDA government was for getting votes in the elections and the financial assistance to the farmers was a copy of KCR’s Rythu Bandhu scheme.

TRS working president K T Rama Rao reacted to the Union budget and said Jai Kisan. Rao on his Twitter account said, “the name may have been changed by NDA government, in spirit it remains as a trimmed version of Rythu Bandhu... ‘Jai Kisan’.” He also said, “they say imitation is the best form of flattery. Glad that the farmers of India are going to be helped by Rythu Bandhu... 

It is a brainchild of our Hon’ble CM KCR Garu.” TRS MP B Vinod Kumar said that this was not a vote-on-account budget but like a general budget. Union Finance Minister Piyush Goyal has crossed the limitations of vote on account budget. The government which was elected for five years had presented five budgets and this was the vote-on-account budget, but this appeared like a full budget, said Vinod.

The TRS leader alleged that the speech of the Finance Minister was like election campaign speech. He said that Telangana has shown the way to the country in the implementation of welfare schemes. “We are happy that the Centre has copied Rythu Bandhu of the State government, but the farmers would be happy if the scheme is fully implemented,” said Vinod. However, he said that the Telangana government’s Rythu Bandhu was better than the Modi’s Rythu Bandhu. 

The TRS leader demanded that the Centre announce the guidelines of this scheme. He also said that by the time the scheme is implemented, the election code would be in place hence it may not be possible to implement this scheme. 

Nizamabad MP K Kavitha said that the Centre has copied Rythu Bandhu scheme of Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao. Reacting on her Twitter account, Kavitha said, “GOI introduces a bad copy of KCR’s Rythu Bandhu scheme. Telangana gives every farmer Rs 5,000 per acre, twice a year. Central government scheme proposes to give Rs 6, 000 per year in three instalments. Although needs refinement, it is a welcome move by Narendra Modiji.”