PM Modi & CM KCR Have A Private Meeting To Strike A Chord

In his first visit to the capital after taking over as the first chief minister of Telangana, K Chandrasekhara Rao on Saturday met Prime Minister Narendra Modi and demanded that his newly formed state be treated on a par with Andhra Pradesh for the purpose of giving them special category status.

He also wanted tax incentives to Telangana on the lines of the ones extended to the hill states of Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand. Rao pointed out that it was a commitment under the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act.

On his part, Modi, after earlier securing tacit support from two powerful regional leaders—J Jayalalithaa and Naveen Patnaik— on Saturday reached out to KCR. Like Patnaik, who paraded his party’s 24 MPs before Modi when he came to demand a better deal for Odisha, Rao too was flanked by all 11 TRS MPs when he met Modi. He also had an exclusive meeting for half-an-hour with the PM, in which it is reported they arrived at an understanding on a working relationship.