Surekha fires bias salvo against TRS

​Hyderabad: Konda Surekha, who was elected from Warangal (East) Assembly constituency, on Saturday accused the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) leadership of discriminating against women. She expressed her anger over the TRS denying ticket to those candidates who belonged to the Backward Classes, Scheduled castes, besides women. She was one of the sitting MLAs who was not renominated as TRS party candidate.

Addressing a press conference here, Surekha denied that she had demanded the party ticket not only for herself but also her daughter Sushmita Patil. She said she had accepted the party’s decision to renominate her as party candidate. But, the party leadership had not considered fielding her again from Warangal East. She blamed Minister for Information Technology K T Rama Rao for the mess-up.

“K T Rama Rao is building his own coterie and he is not keen on having leaders like me who have a voice and are known to raise questions. Also, the party has to definitely consider my name when it comes to inclusion of a women minister in Cabinet and hence this behaviour. Without telling us to leave the party, they created a situation to force us to quit because of humiliatiton," she said.

She said she and her husband Konda Murali worked with commitment for the party and did not seek any benefits even for fighting various elections. In the run-up last elections, the TRS leadership had invited her and her husband to join the party and contest on the ‘car symbol’ promising MLC ticket to Murali and Cabinet post to her, she recalled.

“Except for taking B forms from the party, Surekha or Murali did not take a single penny from the party for fighting the elections or other elections held in Warangal, including MP election, Municipal Corporation elections, and MLC election in last four years. We were very committed to the party, but this is what we got ultimately," she said.

Surekha alleged her phone and husband phone as well as her assistants’ phones were tapped. Our followers including ZPTCs were harassed during the last few months if they displayed her or her husband’s photo on party banners, Surekha said.

The TDP leaders, who defected to TRS, were offered party ticket, but Surekha who contested and won on the ‘car symbol’ was denied TRS ticket, she rued. The former MLA demanded that the party disclose survey reports of all 105 candidates announced by the party. She said surveys showed her performance at 65 per cent, but her name was missing from the list of candidates announced by the Chief Minister, while others with performance graded as just 30 per cent made it to the list.

Surekha, however, expressed doubts whether 50 per cent of candidates in the first list could get party B form ultimately. She pointed out that there was no woman minister in the Telangana Cabinet for the entire term. She was also not happy over the decision to dissolve the Assembly as they had nine more full months to focus on development works before going for general elections.

MLC Konda Murali alleged that whenever Rahul Gandhi or Amit Shah was touring the State, their phones are being tapped. What is the need to keep a constant vigil on them, he asked. Konda couple said they would wait for two to three days for TRS response before deciding on future course of action, which includes contesting independently in two constituencies-Warangal (East) and Bhupalpalli.