india

Updated: Dec 01, 2018 09:53 IST

Congress leader and Punjab’s Cabinet Minister Navjot Singh Sidhu on Friday termed Telangana chief minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao and his family as “Ali Baba Aur 4 Chor”.

“We heard ‘Ali Baba Aur 40 Chor’ but here you have Ali Baba Aur 4 Chor. KCR, KTR, Kavitha, Harish Rao and Santosh Rao,” Sidhu said at a news conference at the Congress office here.

KCR’s son K.T. Rama Rao, popularly known as KTR, is a Cabinet Minister, while daughter K. Kavitha is a member of the Lok Sabha. KCR’s nephew T. Harish Rao is also a Minister in the state Cabinet, while KCR’s co-brother’s son J. Santosh Kumar is a member of the Rajya Sabha.

The cricketer-turned-politician said Telangana was a revenue surplus state but under KCR it had gone under debt of Rs 2.20 lakh crore because “a family is feeding rampantly on the resources”.

“It is not a democracy. It is autocracy. Autocrats and dictators are ruling the state and same is happening at the top,” he said referring to the Narendra Modi government at the Centre.

Sidhu said Telangana was in total disarray as KCR had turned its strengths into weaknesses.

He also slammed the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) chief for using harsh language for a youth who questioned him about the promise of 12 per cent reservation for Muslims at a TRS election rally. “Raj-tantra has turned into Goonda-tantra. What crime the boy had committed,” asked Sidhu.

The Congress leader said KCR was hand in glove with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

He said without this it was not possible to hold elections in Telangana six months before they were originally scheduled. He said for the first time in the country, a Chief Minister announced the date of elections.

He said KCR and Modi had a deal so that KCR’s son and daughter could get key positions after the Lok Sabha elections.

Sidhu also said demonetisation was the biggest scam, which broke the back of informal economy. He pointed out that 93 per cent of country’s economy was informal and 80 per cent of it dependent on cash.

He alleged that huge cash in spiked currency were deposited in banks which had the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders as their directors.

He said at Ahmedabad District Central Cooperative Bank, in which BJP President Amit Shah was a director, Rs 745.59 crore were deposited in just five days while the annual profit of the bank was only Rs 14 crore.