Telangana in 100 days: Advani

Making it clear that Telangana would be the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) poll plank as far as Andhra Pradesh was concerned, its leader L K Advani said that the separate state would be delivered to the people of the region within 100 days of National Democratic Alliance (NDA) coming to power at the Centre.The BJP’s prime ministerial candidate told a huge Vijay Sankalp Yatra meeting at the Parade Grounds in Hyderabad that only a national party can deliver Telangana and that the Congress, the only other party capable of doing it, had betrayed the people of the region by reneging on its promise. “Punish the Congress for betraying the Telangana people,” he told the gathering. Throughout the nearly three-hour long meeting, chants of Jai Telangana and Jai Andhra Pradesh could be heard, though many wondered as to what exactly it meant. And, in an indication that it is not taking on either the TDP or Chiranjeevi in terms of attracting crowds, the BJP strategically erected the dais at the centre of the grounds, thus resulting in the around 1.25 lakh people gathering appearing as a big one. Advani appealed to the non-Left and non-Congress parties in the state to part ways with these two parties and join the NDA. “I hope that Chiranjeevi succeeds in doing the same what N T Rama Rao did some 25 years ago by demolishing the Congress party’s stranglehold,” he said. Advani urged the gathering to vote the NDA to power and usher in a change similar to the miracle in the US presidential polls.Advani’s one-hour speech was translated by fellow party leader M Venkaiah Naidu. The meeting was dominated by subjects like suicides by farmers and weavers, land acquisition for SEZs, liquor consumption,corruption, rising prices of essential commodities, votebank politics and terrorism.