Telangana Polls: Amit Shah Promises OBC Chief Minister If BJP Gets Majority

Hyderabad: Union Home Minister Amit Shah declared on Friday that the BJP will name a leader from Other Backward Classes (OBC) as Telangana chief minister if the party gets a majority in next month’s state assembly polls.

Shah slammed the ruling Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS), accusing them of cheating Dalits, tribals and the OBCs over the last nine-and-a-half years.

“The BRS is anti-poor and anti-weaker sections, as it has failed to fulfil its promises made for their uplift, including distribution of three acres of land for each Dalit family,” the Home minister said while addressing an election rally at Suryapet.

Telangana will vote on November 30.

Shah pointed out that BRS president and chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao – popularly known as KCR — had promised to make a Dalit the state’s CM if his party was voted to power in 2014. “He conveniently ignored his promise. He is now trying to project his son KT Rama Rao as his successor,” Shah said.

Stressing on the claim that BJP will name an OBC leader as the CM if saffron party wins the election, Shah said: “Can KCR make a similar announcement? He has not done anything for the OBCs during his regime.”

The Home minister said that the Congress and BRS were political parties run with a single objective — Congress wants to make Rahul Gandhi the country’s Prime Minister and BRS’s KCR wants to make his son KTR the chief minister.

“The BJP is the only party which strives for the welfare of the people and the development of the nation,” Shah said, adding that BJP was committed to the development of tribals.

KCR didn’t respond to Shah’s challenge vis-à-vis an OBC chief minister, but stressed that he led the most progressive and development-oriented government.

“Even in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s own state of Gujarat, there has been no round-the-clock power supply to the farmers. Yet, the BJP national leaders are coming here and questioning our government,” KCR said at a rally in Mahabubabad later in the day.