KCR is a political terrorist: Congress

Hyderabad: Calling Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao as a 'political terrorist' for engineering defections from the Congress, Leader of Opposition in the Assembly Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka said the Congress would take out Save Democracy Yatra in the state from April 26. Addressing the media, Bhatti said the politics being practised by KCR poses a great threat to democracy.

"On one hand, he accuses everyone of not having any brains and never thought of bringing in qualitative changes in any field and on the other he says if the TRS wins all the 16 seats he would usher in reforms at the Central level. Is this the kind of reforms he is eyeing," asks Bhatti. He said the Save Democracy Yatra would be launched from Pinapaka constituency. The Congress would take support of all other non-TRS parties in this endeavour.

Apart from the Yatra, he said the Congress would wage a legal fight against the Telangana Rashtra Samithi for encouraging defections. He said all the defections were based on quid pro quo. He said the MLAs of the Congress have been promised land regularization, contracts and posts.

He said the ruling party has been trying to remove the Opposition from the Assembly. Vikramarka said the ruling party is scared of the Opposition as it would expose in the Assembly TRS' corruption at various levels of administration, including the project implementation.

Hence, he wants to wipe out the Opposition from the Assembly, he added. Bhatti said, "The Congress would not go back on its fight against corruption in irrigation projects and also in the Mission Bhagiratha. The government indulged in corruption in the execution of the irrigation projects in the name of redesigning.

"Corruption has taken place in Kantanapalli, Dummugudem and Kaleswaram projects. The government executed Mission Bhagiratha only to swindle money," he said. Bhatti said that the party would submit a memorandum to the President of India on the defections. Vikramarka said they have submitted a petition to Assembly Speaker P Srinivas Reddy at Banswada on Tuesday seeking disqualification of the four more MLAs. Earlier, the Congress has sought disqualification of seven MLAs.

Bhatti said the Speaker has been urged to disqualify MLAs Haripriya Naik, Upendar Reddy, J Surendar and Ch Lingaiah. He alleged that the Speaker did not act on the first petition. He alleged that the Governor has also not acted against the government on the defections. Though the Governor should act as custodian of the Constitution, he has not done his job in the state, he added.

Vikramarka said that the defection is a crime as they have been cheating their voters. The voters have voted to them believing that they would stay in the party to which and to whose symbol they have voted. But by defecting, the MLAs have cheated the voters, he added.

"This comes under the breach of trust and punishable under Section 420,' he said, adding that cases would be filed in the court against the defected MLAs. He said that they would approach the Lok Pal against the Chief Minister and the defected MLAs.