HYDERABAD: Former Union Minister Ch. Vidyasagar Rao has claimed a secret understanding between the Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) and the Congress for the Karimnagar Lok Sabha byelection and warned other parties not to take the BJP lightly.

He told a press conference here on Sunday that recent statements by TRS leaders — including one by party president K. Chandrasekhar Rao that he would not contest if Congress president Sonia Gandhi assured creation of Telangana and that development was also one of the main poll issues — had created doubts among the people that a `clandestine' understanding might have been reached or was likely to be sealed.

Mr. Rao, the BJP nominee for the byelection, said the party would go to the people with the slogan that statehood for Telangana could be achieved only under the BJP rule at the Centre, besides highlighting development projects taken up in Karimnagar during the NDA regime. He expressed confidence that the BJP would emerge victorious.

He alleged that the Congress was trying to derive political mileage for the bypoll from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's visit to Mahabubnagar on October 26 to review the implementation of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Programme.

Not only had the Government failed in implementing the programmes, but was unable to arrest migration of people in search of livelihood.

The official machinery had failed in creating employment and ensuring minimum wages to agricultural labour under the scheme, he said.

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