JOIN USTelangana polls: BJP, Congress contest TRS claims of 1.32 lakh government jobs in six years
The TRS, BJP and the Congress are engaged in a war of words over the creation of jobs in Telangana as they gear up for the Hyderabad-RangaReddy-Mahbubnagar and Nalgonda-Warangal-Khammam MLC graduate constituency polls on 14 March.
Last week, the rulings party's working president KT Rama Rao (KTR) claimed that the TRS government has filled 1.32 lakh job vacancies in various departments over the past six years.
The claims were contested by the opposition Congress and BJP. Congress leader Sravan Dasoju termed the figures as “fabricated” and demanded KTR for a debate on jobs at the Telangana Martyrs Memorial at Gun-Park opposite the state assembly on Friday.
Sitting MLC and candidate for Hyderabad-RangaReddy-Mahabubnagar constituency Ramchander Rao challenged KTR to debate him on employment generation in Telangana, at the iconic Arts College building of the Osmania University on Monday morning.
KTR abstained from both the proposed discussions.
Instead, when Rao tweeted saying that he was at the OU venue and where KTR was, the TRS leader replied saying that he was, “busy gathering information on the 12 crore jobs (2 crore per year) & ₹15 lakhs in all Jandhan accounts promised by Hon’ble PM Shri Modi Ji. NDA is the answer so far N - No D - Data A – Available.”
On Sunday, KTR who is also Telangana's IT, industries and investments minister wrote to union IT minister Ravo Shankar Prasad asking for a scheme/initiative for Hyderabad in the place of the lapsed Information Technology Investment Region (ITIR) proposal, to ensure the city provides employment to the local youngsters.
KTR said that numerous appeals were made during the past six years for sanction of funds for the ITIR in Hyderabad, but now “it is amply clear that the Union government is disinclined to continue the ITIR scheme.”
“Lakhs of local youth have been deprived of employment due to the lackadaisical attitude of the centre,” the TRS minister stated in the letter.
Attacking the Congress earlier, KTR, also the municipal administration minister, said that “during the ten-year tenure from 2004 to 14 in erstwhile Andhra Pradesh, the Congress government managed to fill just 24,000 vacancies through the Public Service Commission, of which Telangana’s share was a mere 10,000.”
A person who is a graduate or above is eligible to vote in the MLC graduate constituency elections. In a shift from the assembly polls, the poll campaign here is focussed on issues like education, jobs and development.
The elected legislators represent their constituents in the legislative council, the upper house of the state legislature.
For the Hyderabad-RangaReddy-Mahbubnagar seat, Ramchander Rao is the BJP candidate, while TRS has fielded former PM PV Narasimha Rao's daughter Surabhi Vani Devi. Veteran Congress leader and former minister Chinna Reddy is the Congress candidate.