Telangana Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy at the Telangana Legislative Assembly in Hyderabad. File
| Photo Credit: ANI
Chief Minister and Telangana Congress president A. Revanth Reddy has charged Bharat Rashtra Samiti (BRS) president and former Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao with mortgaging the interests of Telangana to Prime Minister Narendra Modi led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) Government at the Centre.
Revanth alleges BRS attempted to merge with BJP
He alleged that the BRS attempted to merge with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and has supported the NDA alliance in all its crucial decisions. “People gave their verdict after watching the performance of the BRS for 10 years,” he said at the budget session of theLegislative Assembly of Telangana on Tuesday. The Congress on its part had been increasing its presence in the elected bodies as can be seen from its rise since the formation of separate Telangana.
The Congress, which had couple of seats in Lok Sabha at the time of State formation, increased its strength to eight at present as it stayed closer to the people and worked for their welfare all these years. “The BRS, which got majority in 39 assembly seats in December last year, could secure majority in just three of the 119 assembly constituencies indicating its declining popularity,” he said.
The Chief Minister was responding to charges of BRS MLA and the party’s working president K.T. Rama Rao against the State Government during the discussion on the ‘injustice’ meted out to Telangana in the budget 2024 presented by Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday. The discussion, the Chief Minister said, was necessitated as the Government wanted to elicit the views of all political parties before passing a resolution protesting against the Centre’s attitude in discriminating against Telangana.
Mr. Revanth Reddy who intervened in the discussion recalled the way the BRS supported the Modi-led Government in the passage of GST Bill, demonetisation, Triple Talaq and other bills as well as in the election to the posts of President and Vice-President. Mr. Chandrasekhar Rao went ahead in supporting the Central Government in the ‘black laws’ it enacted in addition to giving its consent to the amendment made to the Inter State River Water Disputes Act.
“Telangana which started its journey with ₹14,000 crore surplus is now bankrupt in terms of finances as well as in crucial sectors like power. Thousands of crores is still to be paid to the contractors at a time when the State is made to cough up close to ₹70,000 crore interest payment burden every year,” he said.
No need for BRS to entry into tacit understanding with BJP: KTR
Interestingly, Mr. Rama Rao said the BRS, then TRS, contemplated to merge the party with the Congress in 2014 itself but did not do so because of the behaviour of senior Congress leader Digvijaya Singh. He refuted the charges over the discussions between the BRS and the BJP claiming that there was no need for the party to enter into any tacit understanding with the BJP.
He asserted that the BRS would continue its struggle to protect the interests of the State and would also focus on exposing the Government if it did not fulfil its six guarantees to the people.
