BJP questions Congress' delay over passage of Telangana Bill

Senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader, Venkaiah Naidu, questioned the delay in the passage of bill to create a separate state of Telangana, which will be carved out of Andhra Pradesh.

Addressing a news conference in Hyderabad on Sunday, Naidu said that the Congress party was leveling false allegations agaomst the BJP that it tried to stall the bill.

Naidu also endorsed the alliance of the BJP with the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and accused the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) and the Congress party for delay in the passage of the bill.

"We have supported the bill to create Telangana though Congress party brought it in the last moment for political reasons because we wanted to fulfill our commitment to the people of Telangana. We supported the bill and of course we argued for the welfare of Seemandhra people also because they are also part of India and we feel proud that we have done both. And this absurd argument that BJP has tried to stall the bill in Parliament, right from Sonia Gandhi to Jairam Ramesh, they are telling lies. BJP support only enabled Telangana bill to be passed in Parliament. The delay has to be explained by the Congress and TRS," Naidu said.

Meanwhile, Naidu also hit out at Congress party for what it alleged over spending in election campaigns.

"Whatever we are spending is known to the Election Commission, we are collecting from the people and we are spending the money. You (Congress party) have the easy earned money from various scams coal scam, telecom scam, wheat scam, sugar scam, rice scam, Adarsh scam, scam after scam. Your regime has given the Commonwealth Games scam. All these scams happened under you. You will be having that much amount of money, we don't have and we don't intend to spend it also," he added.

Earlier, Congress party had slammed BJP for hefty expenditure on election campaign and questioned the sources of funds.

Candidate and party funding in India is opaque and the source of much of the spending is hard to ascertain, but the Centre for Media Studies and other transparency advocates say the main contenders have built up large war chests.

Rules allow candidates to spend 7 million rupees on campaigns for a parliament seat but the real cost of winning is about 10 times that, thanks to spending on rallies, fuel and media campaigns that often include payments for coverage.