Telangana sentimental to me: Meira

​Hyderabad: The UPA candidate for the ensuing presidential elections Meira Kumar tried to touch the sentiment chord while seeking the support of the members of the collegium from Telagnana.

Talking to the Congress legislators at Gandhi Bhavan on Monday, Meira Kumar said she has been part of evolution of the Telangana state.

“I am sentimentally attached to the state of Telangana. People of this region had given a lot of love and affection to my father Babu Jagjivan Ram. They had shown equal love me,” she told them.

Appealing to the TRS MLAs not to get swayed away by political considerations, she said while electing the next president they should listen to their inner voice and vote if they want to protect secularism and socialism in the country.

Later in a brief interaction with The Hans India, Miera Kumar said that her appeal to the TRS legislators would be to vote as per their conscience since she was fighting for an ideology. She said one may have certain political compulsions but the inner voice should not be suppressed.

Replying to another question, she said she has high regard for the NDA candidate Ramnath Kovind, the collegium should understand that secularism and socialism would be under threat if he wins. She however refused to elaborate on it.

When pointed out that the parties supporting the NDA candidate say that Congress was not serious in getting Meira Kumar elected as the President of India. If they were serious, they would have fielded her when in power in place of Pranab Mukherjee, the former Speaker said, “You are all very learned people.

You know the word ‘if’ has great potential. If people had voted differently, the course of history would have changed. So let’s not get into if’s and but’s,” she said.

To a question on her not having the required numbers to win the elections, Meira Kumar said she was fighting the polls on values and principles which were "sacred" to the people of the country.

Seventeen major political parties under the chairmanship of Sonia Gandhi, have unanimously selected her to be their candidate for the presidential elections.

The unity of coming together is based on their firm ideological position on democratic values, inclusiveness, social justice, ending poverty and destruction of the caste system. This ideology is very close to my heart, she said.

She appealed to Congress party leaders to convince the TRS and other members of the collegium to have a change of heart.

In a reply to another question on the political parties talking about the caste of the candidates, she said, “It is very unfortunate. We have to come out of this mindset.

Even in 2017, people with high qualifications are talking about castes. When both the sides had fielded candidates from higher castes in the past, no one discussed about it.

Only their capabilities and achievements were talked about. But this time caste is being discussed. The society needs to come out of this mentality,” she said.

Asked if she had met KCR, she said she had written a letter to the Chief Minister before coming here expressing her wish to talk to him over phone and in the morning the TPCC had also left a message with the CMO but there was no response from him.

TPCC president N Uttam Kumar Reddy said they had also written a letter to the AIMIM president Assaduddin Owaisi saying that Meira Kumar would like to speak to him. He too chose not to respond, Uttam said.