PM: Cong will make T best State

• Your vote decides your future, Prime Minister tells Telangana
• Congress alone realised dreams of people for separate State
• Only it can develop T State and meet their demands & needs
• ‘Don’t vote for BJP which pits one community against another’

Bhongir: Promising to make Hyderabad a global destination for investments, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Saturday called upon the people to vote for Congress in the interest of nation as well as the new State of Telangana. Addressing a well-attended meeting, the Prime Minister said that the Congress party would ensure that the struggles and sacrifices of the people would not go waste, and the UPA would see to it that Telangana would become such a State as to make people proud of it.

Singh said that if Congress was voted to power it would make Telangana the most developed state in the country. He reminded the Telangana people that while passing the Telangana Bill, the UPA government announced special packages for the backward areas of Telangana and Seemandhra. After coming back to power both at Centre and in the T state, the UPA-III would accord national project status to Pranahita Chevella project, he said. Singh stressed that it was time for the people to take a crucial decision.

They should understand that their decision would lay the foundation for the setting yardstick for the pace of development of the new state. The new government that would come to power should be one that understands the needs of the region and the aspirations of the people. It should be a government that respects the dreams and wishes of the people and only Congress can do that, he said. Lashing out at BJP and TRS, he said that many political parties including some small parties were claiming credit for making T state a reality. People should know that but for the efforts made by Sonia Gandhi and the determination of the Congress party, T state would have never materialised.

The Congress party which had decided to carve out a separate state kept its word despite strong opposition from many quarters. Tearing into BJP for "running a divisive campaign to derive political dividends", Singh said the opposition party's poll strategy was centered on only on an individual and its promises can never be fulfilled. They are making promises which they will never be able to fulfil.

The Prime Minister further said, that more attention should be given to national issues in Lok Sabha elections and one of the big national issues this time is: “Should a government of such a party be formed which always worked for dividing the society; should your vote go to such a party which works for setting up a fight between one community with another?..." he said while hitting out at BJP.

Singh said, “you must have heard statements of some BJP leaders in which they openly tried to create a divide in the society. Though BJP had tried to distance itself from such statements, I feel efforts to divide society are part of BJP's politics. It needs to be taken note of that these statements came at such a time when elections (are) round the corner; the BJP feels that divisive politics will benefit the party," the Prime Minister said.

Taking exception to BJP's attack on his government for "failing" to check corruption, the Prime Minister said the UPA regime had taken concrete measures like enacting Right to Information and the Lokpal. In fact, the UPA wanted to bring in many more legislations to root out corruption, but the opposition did not cooperate, he added.