Rahul Gandhi India’s ‘Biggest Buffoon’, KCR 'Modern Tughlaq’: Barbs Fly as Telangana Goes to Early Polls

Hyderabad: Telangana chief minister and TRS president K Chandrashekar Rao went into attack mode soon after paving the way for snap polls by recommending the dissolution of the state assembly as he described Congress president Rahul Gandhi as the "biggest buffoon" in the country.

"The whole country has seen how he went and hugged Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Parliament and winked," KCR told a news conference. When asked about Gandhi's plans to extensively campaign in Telangana, the TRS chief said: "The more he comes, it will be easier for us (to win elections)."

KCR said Gandhi had inherited the legacy of the Congress’ Delhi empire and hence he was appealing to the people of Telangana not to become slaves to Delhi. "The decisions of Telangana should be taken in Telangana," he said.

He said that if Congress leaders “come to ground and fight in the elections, public will give the reply.” “Before 2014 many issues were in Telangana, like bomb blasts, electricity issues, communal violence but now we are free of all this,” he said.

The Congress, which is the main opposition in the state, has said KCR owed an explanation to the people as to what necessitated him to cut short the Assembly tenure.

The state was formed after "so much of struggle and sacrifices," and people had so many hopes on development, farm issues and employment generation but those promises have not been fulfilled, the chief spokesperson of the Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee Sravan Dasoju said.

Alleging a "dubious pact" pact between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Rao, he claimed that if simultaneous polls were to be held for Lok Sabha and Telangana Assembly as scheduled next year, it would have turned into a Rahul Gandhi versus Modi fight in states like Telangana benefitting the Congress.

Senior party leader Randeep Surjewala also attacked KCR, calling him a "modern-day Tughlaq" and a "BJP stooge".

The TRS chief, however, ruled out any alliance with the BJP, saying his was a 100 per cent secular party. “How can we join hands with BJP?” he asked. He also clarified that the TRS would fight the elections alone, but said his party remains friendly with the MIM (All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen).