KCR elected TRS President for 8th consecutive term

Hyderabad, Apr 24: Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao (KCR) was on Thursday unanimously re-elected President of the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) for the eighth consecutive term. Soon after his election, Rao (61) reaffirmed his commitment to all-round development of the new state and listed achievements of his over 10-month old government.

The announcement about Rao's re-election was made at the party's plenary session held here amid much pomp, the first such gathering after Telangana came into existence as a separate state on June 2 last year. There were no other contenders and the announcement was made by Home Minister N Narasimha Reddy, who was the returning officer for the election, amid cheers from about 36,000 gathering of delegates from across the state.

The day-long event is being seen more as a show of strength by TRS, which had made massive arrangements for the grand programme at the L B Stadium here. Hyderabad was awash in pink, the colour adopted by TRS, with a large number of hoardings, flexi boards, cut-outs and banners being put all over.

The party sought to showcase the Telangana traditions and culture at the venue, while a wide variety of state's delicacies were served to the delegates. Speaking soon after the election, Rao recalled the struggle and long journey to achieve statehood for Telangana and vowed to ensure the all-round development of the newly-created state with a focus on welfare of weaker sections, irrigation, infrastructure and power.

Proving the nay-sayers wrong, the TRS government has been able to fulfil all the key election promises, including loan waiver for farmers, and increased social security pensions to senior citizens, women and the disabled, he said. Listing out the achievements of his government, he said there would be no power cuts in Telangana in the future.

The government has drawn up plans to augment power production by 24,000 MW in the coming three years. The party passed resolutions on different topics, including development of Hyderabad as a global city, welfare of SCs and other weaker sections and 'Mission Kakatiya' (renovation of tanks), among others.

PTI