Telangana: BJP keeps political heat on over state president's arrest

Hyderabad, Jan 7:  Keeping the political heat on over the recent arrest of its Telangana unit chief, the BJP continued to rope in its central leaders to target the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) government in the state.

After the visits of BJP national President J.P. Nadda, central minister Bhagwanth Khuba, BJP national Vice-President and former Chief Minister of Chhattisgarh Raman Singh during the last three days, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan flew to Hyderabad on Friday to keep the momentum going.

Aiming to politically cash in on what it calls 'illegal' arrest of state unit President and MP Bandi Sanjay Kumar and the alleged high-handedness by the police, the saffron party is going all out to target the state government led by K. Chandrasekhar Rao.

Addressing a meeting at BJP state headquarters here, Chouhan called Chief Minister KCR, as Chandrasekhar is popularly known, a coward.

"A Chief Minister should respond when some issue is raised by the leader of an opposition party, but KCR is so scared that he put him in jail. Only a man who is scared resort to such tactics," Chouhan said.

He alleged that KCR is unable to accept the ground realities after the defeat of TRS in the Huzurabad Assembly by-election.

"What do you think of BJP workers? Can you silence them by using lathis against them? We are not biryani that you will eat," Chouhan said.

The Madhya Pradesh CM said that he had come to Hyderabad to declare 'dharam yudh' against the KCR government.

"We will not rest till we throw this corrupt, autocratic and oppressive government out of power," he said.

The BJP leader exuded confidence that the saffron party will come to power in Telangana in 2023 and will build a new Telangana.

He said KCR's tactics of silencing BJP workers with arrests, lathis and cases will fail to stop them from achieving their goal.

Singh said while KCR is scared of BJP in Telangana, the Congress is scared of BJP in Punjab, referring to the recent security breach issue involving Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

"They put the life of the Prime Minister in danger. Such a thing never happened in India's history," he said.

BJP national General Secretary and in-charge of party affairs in Telangana, Tarun Chugh, alleged that the police used gas cutters to break into the camp office to arrest Sanjay. He said Sanjay's office was turned into 'Jallianwala Bagh' as the police brutally attacked BJP leaders and workers.

He also slammed Karimnagar Police Commissioner Satyanarayana and warned that he will not be spared as he will have to answer the Lok Sabha and the court.

He alleged that there is dictatorial rule in Telangana as the TRS government is trying to suppress peaceful and democratic protests.

Sanjay, along with some other leaders and workers of the BJP, was arrested by the police in Karimnagar town on the night of January 2 when he was leading a protest against a government order relating to transfer of government employees and teachers. The police foiled the protest citing orders banning public gatherings in view of the Covid-19 situation.

A Karimnagar court on January 3 sent the MP to judicial custody for 14 days. However, the high court quashed the remand and ordered his release on January 5.