BJP leaders see no impact post-KCR's public meeting

Hyderabad: Post the public meeting of Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao, the State BJP is going town to town, village to village in Munugodu assembly constituency, asking people whether the three turncoat TRS MLAs paraded in the meeting are pure pearls?

According to State BJP poll managers, the meeting has given them enough ammunition to turn the tide against the pink party.

The saffron party leaders left no stone unturned to tell people how three MLAs that the TRS chief paraded at the meeting were earlier elected on different party symbols but joined the TRS without resigning from the party on whose ticket they had got elected to the Assembly. "It is to demolish the TRS chief's rhetoric to stake a political moral high ground vis- a- vis BJP."

While BJP Rajya Sabha member Dr K Laxman asked whether those MLAs paraded by the CM are pure gold, State BJP chief Bandi Sanjay Kumar phoo-phooed KCR, claiming that he tried to create a larger than life-size picture of the MLAs, and people are not prepared to buy it. "While we are (the BJP-led Centre) procuring paddy, the CM has been procuring MLAs, like cattle. He has procured 38 of them since 2014."

Huzurabad MLA Eatala Rajender went ballistic in his campaign charging the TRS chief with misusing official machinery and keeping a tab on phone conversations of MLAs of other parties as well as his own party. "In gross violation of privacy KCR is listening to even conversations of wives with their MLA husbands and family members and MLAs' parents."

Making things more complicated for TRS in the people's eyes in the election campaign, top State BJP leaders, including Union Minister for Tourism and Culture G Kishan Reddy, insisted on knowing from the TRS chief, as to why has he been confining the four MLAs to Pragati Bhavan? Was he scared they would speak out about the tell-all-tale behind the high poaching drama of MLAs, the Karimnagar MP asked while campaigning?

The BJP leaders have also not been mincing words questioning the TRS and the CM. "Where are hundreds of crores meant to poach the turncoat MLAs?" asking people, if the MLAs are ready to switch their loyalties for Rs 100 crore. They projected the entire episode of poaching as TRS-enacted drama.

When asked, a senior BJP leader pointed out the TRS has been shot in its own foot in the episode of poaching of MLAs. He said it claims the poaching of MLAs was meant to destabilise an elected government. Four MLAs switching over to another party would lead to fall of an elected government. Secondly, without showing the money confiscated the agencies can't establish the bribe charges in which there should be an offerer and receiver, belonging to two different parties with money or other inducements on table. If the investigating agencies show money as little as even lakhs, then, it attracts the legal jurisdiction of the Income-Tax and Enforcement Directorate. Given the current political scenario, the State government is not prepared to allow any Central investigating agencies to probe the MLAs poaching episode. As of now, the TRS government is slapping its own face, he added.