BRS to abstain from poll to elect new Vice President

HYDERABAD

Working president of Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) K.T. Rama Rao stated that their party would abstain from voting for the election of new Vice President as a mark of protest against the failure of Central and State governments to make available urea in time to the farming community and forcing them to stand in long queues for hours together.

“We won’t support either the candidate of the NDA led by Bharatiya Janata Party and or the one from INDI Alliance led by Congress, the two parties in power at the Centre and in the State, though both of them are good candidates. We can’t support anybody as they are representing BJP and Congress”, Mr. Rama Rao said speaking to newspersons here on Monday.

The BRS would have availed NOTA option had there been such a provision in the Vice Presidential election. The BRS has four members in Rajya Sabha, while it has no representation in Lok Sabha.

Asked about MLC K. Kavitha’s suspension from the party, he said there was nothing to add on the issue as action was taken only after internal discussion in the party.

On the issue of defection of 10 MLAs of BRS to the ruling Congress, Mr. Rama Rao said Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) president B. Mahesh Kumar Goud had himself turned an approver in the matter by admitting during a television debate that they had in fact joined the Congress and with the ruling party. Station Ghanpur MLA Kadiyam Srihari too had admitted the fact publicly.

In response to a question pertaining to the busting of a major drug-making racket in Hyderabad by the Maharashtra police, the BRS working president sought to know what the Telangana police been doing when their Maharashtra counterparts had camped in the city, entered the pharma company as workers a month ago and unearthed the racket with all proof.

Questioning what Eagle, the special wing established by the Congress government to fight the drugs issue, was doing when the Maharashtra police had conducted an operation right under its nose, Mr. Rama Rao said it was the second largest drugs haul worth ₹12,000 crore after the one busted in Gujarat with a haul of ₹21,000 crore. He expressed suspicion that some Congress leader could have received kickback and that was why Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy, who was holding the Home portfolio too, was silent.