Telangana CM K Chandrasekhar Rao says ready for early polls, challenges Opposition to face electoral contest

Hyderabad: Hinting at early elections, Telangana chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao on Sunday said he was ready to go for polls and challenged the Opposition parties to face it if they were willing to. “Presently in Telangana, there has been a steady growth in all the fields. This growth should not be stopped due to the politics being done by opposition parties. They should stop levelling baseless allegations,” the TRS chief, popularly known as KCR, said. “We are focused on development… but Opposition is indulging in cheap politics and keeping on criticising our government,” he charged. “I want to ask are they willing to face the election? Let us face it and people will decide by giving a mandate so that the party concerned can rule the government,” he said. [caption id=“attachment_4501909” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] File image of chief minister of Telangana K Chandrashekhar Rao. Twitter/@TelanganaCMO[/caption] Exuding confidence that TRS would win the 2019 elections, Rao claimed that surveys have already predicted that the party would bag 100 plus seats in the 119-member assembly. “As per the surveys TRS party will easily win in 100 plus seats with more than 50,000 (votes) majority in each constituency,” he added. TRS had won 63 seats in the 2014 Assembly elections, while the Congress stood in second place with 26 seats. The BJP had bagged five seats. Rao was addressing party workers at Telangana Bhavan where former minister Danam Nagender, formally joined the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) along with his supporters after resigning from Congress on 22 June. The state, Rao said is growing in all sectors including Agriculture and was ranked number one in ease of doing business. Stating that AIMIM is a friendly and reliable party, Rao said it was “an honest friend and truthful.” Rao noted that his government has launched several welfare and pro-people schemes including providing 24-hour power supply for farmers. “People are enjoying the schemes launched by the government. What we promised during the agitation (for the formation of Telangana state) has been fulfilled,” he claimed. Terming the Opposition parties as ‘innocent rivals,’ Rao said that before every by-poll, the Congress would predict the downfall of TRS, only to see the party winning them. The chief ministers of Odisha, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh were performing well and winning and ruling the state for several years, he said. On the Kaleshwaram Irrigation project, the chief minister alleged the Congress filed 196 cases to stall the project. In his address, Nagender said Rao worked for the welfare of various sections of society.