Hyderabad: Much ahead of Diwali this year, the State Legislative Assembly is set to witness fireworks, with Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy deciding to table in the Assembly on Sunday the Justice PC Ghose Commission report on the alleged irregularities and widespread graft in the construction of the Kaleshwaram project.
With the Telangana High Court barring the state government from making the report public before the Assembly debates on it, and with the beleaguered opposition Bharat Rashtra Samithi opposing the report with its back to the wall for over two weeks, the Chief Minister will present the 650-page report and let the parties debate its findings in the House.
Going by an official presser, the Ghose Commission report has held former CM KCR and T Harish Rao, a former irrigation officer, responsible for irregularities in planning, execution, operation and maintenance of the Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Project in Telangana.
The Telangana High Court on August 22 declined to grant interim relief to former chief minister K Chandrashekar Rao (KCR) and former irrigation officer T Harish Rao in petitions seeking to quash the report on the Kaleshwaram project.
Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) chief KCR and Harish Rao had filed writ petitions seeking to quash and set aside the report contending that the probe panel headed by Ghose was illegal as it was made against the provisions of the Commission of Inquiry Act.
Although the Business Advisory Committee (BAC), which met soon after the House adjourned for the day on Saturday, has not decided the schedule of the Assembly session, the leaders said that the government is keen on running the House for two days, with taking up the Ghose Commission report and amending the Panchayat Raj Act to provide quota for BCs in the upcoming elections to local bodies on the agenda.
As the city police have been busy making security arrangements for Ganesh festivities and idol immersion, the state government was planning to give a break to the Assembly session and resume it after the idol immersion. However, Assembly Speaker G Prasad Kumar will take a call on Sunday regarding continuation of the session for more days.
Meanwhile, the BRS staged a walk-out from the BAC for not including the urea shortage, floods, viral fevers, and deaths in Gurukul schools as main items in the agenda of the session.
BRS leader T Harish Rao said that the opposition party demanded in the BAC meeting that the Assembly sessions should be held for at least 15 days. However, the government has not accepted the demand. The BRS also insisted that the Assembly should first take up a discussion on the loss of lives and crops caused by the recent floods across the state. The second major issue was the severe shortage of urea. “We demanded a proper discussion in the Assembly on who is responsible for this urea shortage. We also requested a debate on the increasing number of viral fevers like malaria and dengue due to poor sanitation in villages,” the BRS stated.
