'We should teach them a lesson': Chandrasekhar Rao deplores knife attack on BRS poll candidate in Telangana

Hyderabad: Deploring the knife attack on BRS MP Kotha Prabhakar Reddy who is a candidate in the upcoming assembly elections, BRS president and Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao on Tuesday said negative forces who resort to such attacks should be taught a lesson.

Prabhakar Reddy, who is the BRS candidate in Dubbak assembly constituency, was stabbed by a 38-year-old man with a knife, while he was campaigning in Siddipet district on Monday.

Rao, also known as KCR, was speaking at an event here where former Congress leaders Nagam Janardhan Reddy and P Vishnu Vardhan Reddy, both denied tickets by Congress to contest in the November 30 polls, joined the BRS here.

"Some negative forces would always be there in politics. There are some who oppose. They, with a strange attitude, attacked our MP Prabhakar Reddy yesterday and tried to take his life. By god's grace, he is out of danger. He is safe now. But this type of deplorable attacks are unprecedented. We should be alert to teach them a lesson," Rao said.

"Achieving a great victory in the assembly elections would be a slap on the face of such negative forces," he said.

Welcoming Janardhan Reddy and Vishnu Vardhan Reddy into BRS, Rao recalled that Janardhan Reddy had even gone to jail during the Telangana agitation in 1969.

The BRS president said that Vishnu Vardhan Reddy's late father P Janardhan Reddy was a popular leader who had fought for Telangana and the interests of Hyderabad people with an uncompromising attitude.

Speaking about the government's achievements in the state, KCR said Telangana has achieved great progress, including high per capita income, high per capita power utilisation, job creation and others.

Meanwhile, BRS Working President K T Rama Rao, who on Monday blamed 'Congress goons' for the attack on the BRS candidate, reiterated his charge.

"The Congress Goon who unleashed the murder attack on MP Prabhakar Reddy yesterday," Rama Rao said on social media platform X, posting a purported image of the accused wearing a Congress scarf, and asked. "Do you need more proofs Rahul Gandhi?" PCC president Revanth Reddy on Monday slammed Rama Rao over his tweet blaming 'Congress goons'.

Dubbing Rama Rao as 'Drama Rao', Reddy had said using the attack on a Member of Parliament for 'cheap' political purposes shows that the loss of BRS (in polls) is certain.

People have understood the 'crooked' attitude of BRS to link the incident to Congress, he said on X.

He sought a comprehensive investigation into the incident to bring out the truth.