CM KCR spent Rs.150 cr to win Huzurabad bypoll: BJP leader

Former Minister and BJP leader Eatala Rajender on Thursday alleged that the Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao has so far spent Rs 150 crore to win the bypoll in the Huzurabad Assembly constituency.

He claimed that the Chief Minister has mobilised thousands of crores of rupees for the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi's victory in the ensuing by-election. He said the ruling party was buying leaders from other parties.

Rajender, who resigned from the TRS and State Assembly and joined BJP in June, said those who fought for the statehood to Telangana were disappearing while those who betrayed Telangana were appearing on the scene.

Referring to the decision of the TRS government to nominate former Congress leader P Kaushik Reddy to the Legislative Council, the BJP leader said KCR was rewarding those who betrayed the Telangana movement.

He said a leader involved in pelting stones on Telangana activists during Odarpu yatra has been made an MLC. The yatra was undertaken by YSR Congress Party leader YS Jagan Mohan Reddy in 2010 to console families of those who had died of shock following the death of his father and Chief Minister YS Rajasekhara Reddy.

Kaushik Reddy, who had contested as the Congress candidate in Huzurabad in 2018, recently resigned from the party to join the TRS. Rajender, who will be contesting the by-election as a BJP candidate, said KCR was now implementing the promises which he had made a long ago. He alleged that KCR has no love for the people of Huzurabad but only want their votes.

Rajender was addressing reporters after discharge from Apollo Hospital, where he was admitted last week after he took ill during his padyatra in the Huzurabad constituency. He was dropped from cabinet by KCR in May following allegations of land encroachment. Rajender has denied the allegations. He later snapped a nearly two-decade-long association with the TRS and joined the BJP.