india

Updated: Dec 13, 2018 00:25 IST

Telangana Rashtra Samithi president K Chandrasekhar Rao will take oath as the chief minister of Telangana for the second successive term at 1.30 pm on Thursday.

KCR was elected as the leader of the TRS legislature party on Wednesday at a brief meeting of its newly-elected MLAs at the party headquarters, Telangana Bhavan.

After the meeting, a delegation of the TRS legislators went to Raj Bhavan with a copy of resolution of the MLAs electing KCR as their leader. The Governor invited him to form the government.

Along with KCR, there is a possibility of only one senior minister taking oath. “We shall expand our cabinet soon by inducting some more ministers. We shall give due representation to different sections and communities in the cabinet,” the caretaker chief minister told media, after the legislature party meeting.

The legislature party meeting was attended by 88 MLAs, including the party president.

Interestingly, the party tally has gone up to 89 with independent MLA from Ramagundam constituency Korukanti Chander announcing in the morning that he was joining the TRS. He met KCR’s son KT Rama Rao and expressed his willingness to join the party. He contested as a rebel candidate after being denied the party ticket.

KCR reiterated his decision to play a crucial role in the national politics by striving to form a non-Congress, non-BJP federal front.

He declared that the Rythu Bandhu scheme introduced by his government in May this year, providing Rs 4,000 per acre to each farmer towards investment assistance, would be implemented throughout the country, if the federal front comes to power at the Centre in 2019. The scheme played crucial role in bringing the TRS to power for the second consecutive time.

“The Federal Front will go to polls with the slogan to replicate the Rytu Bandhu scheme across the country, to encourage farming. The scheme will cost the exchequer roughly around Rs 3.5 lakh crore. It is not a burden. The farm sector needs this support,” he said, adding that the front would focus on improving the living conditions of farmers and minorities.

He came down heavily on the Congress and the BJP for trying to usurp the powers of the states and keep them under the control of the Centre. “Both the parties have diluted the spirit of federalism and that is why, we are taking initiative in creating an alternative model of governance with more powers to the states,” he asserted.

The TRS president said his government would strive to fulfill all its pre-election promises at the earliest. “We shall fill up vacant government posts on a war footing. The opposition parties tried to mislead the unemployed over the job vacancies. We shall also implement payment of unemployment allowance to the jobless youth from the coming financial year,” he asserted.