BRS MP Ravichandra slams Congress govt over arrest of BRS leaders for seeking Jurala water

BRS Parliamentary Party leader Vaddiraju Ravichandra accused the Congress government of detaining BRS leaders and farmers seeking irrigation water for the Jurala ayacut. He questioned the denial of water to crops and criticised the government over irrigation and BC reservation issues

Hyderabad: BRS Parliamentary Party leader Vaddiraju Ravichandra accused the Congress government of detaining BRS leaders and farmers who sought the release of irrigation water to the Jurala project ayacut. He questioned the government’s objection to releasing water from the project when farmers were facing a shortage.

Speaking at a press conference at Telangana Bhavan on Monday, Ravichandra alleged that the State was being run by an inefficient government that would soon be voted out of power. He said the Jurala project did not require nine TMCft of water for drinking purposes and questioned the government’s use of drinking water requirements as an excuse to deny water to crops. He questioned the release of Krishna and Godavari river water to Andhra Pradesh while Telangana farmers were struggling.

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He criticised the government for its failure to repair two damaged piers of the Medigadda barrage and for not lifting water from the Kannepalli pump house despite the possibility of doing so. “Had the Kannepalli pumps been operated at the beginning of the season, there would have been no shortage of irrigation and drinking water,” he remarked.

Ravichandra said farmers were not getting adequate urea and that irrigation was being denied to artificially create a crop holiday, as the government was unwilling to procure their produce. He said farmers and BCs were among those badly affected by the 22-A issue. He also accused the government of failing to honour its promise of 42 per cent reservation for BCs and denying adequate representation to BCs in the Cabinet.

BRS MLA K Sanjay stated that the police prevented BRS leaders and farmers from reaching the Jurala project despite the availability of about nine TMCft of water. He questioned why MPs and MLAs were not raising the issue in the Assembly. He also criticised Union Minister G Kishan Reddy over government medical colleges, pointing out that Telangana did not receive a single college among the 157 sanctioned nationally.