Several prominent Opposition leaders on Wednesday attended a rally organised by Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao’s Bharat Rashtra Samithi and called for the ouster of the Bharatiya Janata Party in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, PTI reported.
Besides Rao, or KCR as he is popularly called, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann, Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav and Communist Party of India leader D Raja attended the rally held in Telangana’s Khammam.
The rally, which saw a massive turnout, was the first since the Telangana Rashtra Samithi entered national politics by renaming itself as the Bharat Rashtra Samithi in October.
Addressing the rally, KCR said his party will put up a strong fight against the “indiscriminate privatisation” of public assets by the Narendra Modi government at the Centre.
“The power sector has been handed over to the private sector,” he said. “The Life Insurance Corporation is being privatised. So is the case with the Visakhapatnam Steel Plan. Make In India has become Joke in India. There is Make in India, but there are China bazaars in every street [in the country].”
Rao also promised to abolish the Agnipath scheme for short-term recruitment in Armed forces if his party comes to power.
Vijayan, meanwhile, accused the BJP of trying to destroy the country’s federal structure. “I hope that today, in Khammam, the land of people’s resistances, we will have the beginning of a new resistance, a resistance to secure the ideals that we fought for in our freedom struggle,” the Kerala chief minister said. “A resistance to protect our secularism, our democracy, our Constitution and thereby our nation.”
His Delhi counterpart Kejriwal asked citizens to think about the country, unemployment, healthcare and price rise while voting, PTI reported.
“Now, the country wants a change,” he said at the rally. “People came to know that these people did not come to change the country. They just came to ruin the country. The 2024 elections are an opportunity for you. Ten years is over [since BJP came to power]. How long will you wait?”
Yadav said the BJP will not be in power at the Centre after 399 days, referring to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s comment at the party national executive meet on Tuesday that 400 days are left for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. “This government is counting its days,” he said.
Raja urged secular democratic parties to understand the threat the country is facing. “We will have to fight against the BJP-RSS [Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh] combine and will have to defeat them in the forthcoming 2024 elections,” the Communist Party of India leader said. “This is the message that should go from Khammam, the revolutionary centre of Telangana.”
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