Congress, BSP leaders join BRS in Gajwel

Several Congress and BSP leaders from three mandals joined the BRS in Gajwel in the presence of T Harish Rao. He accused the Congress government of ignoring gram panchayats, failing on funds, pensions, crop loan waiver and Kalyana Lakshmi promises

Siddipet: Several leaders from the Congress party and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) from Kukunurpally, Jagdevpur and Gajwel mandals joined the BRS in the presence of former Minister T Harish Rao in Gajwel on Tuesday.

Speaking on the occasion, Harish Rao said the Congress government had completely ignored gram panchayats after it came to power. Accusing the Congress of sending sarpanches to jail for questioning the lack of funds to gram panchayats, he called upon the BRS cadre and citizens to teach a lesson to the ruling party in the coming gram panchayat elections. Panchayat secretaries could not even deliver their duties properly since the government had failed to grant any funds, he said, adding that panchayat secretaries could not install streetlights and there were no funds available to buy diesel to operate tractors.

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Villages were in the grip of viral fever outbreaks since sanitation was completely ignored, Harish Rao said, stating that Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy had failed to keep promises he made during the assembly election campaign. The government failed to enhance pensions and also denied the crop loan waiver to many farmers, apart from failing to gift one tola of gold and Rs 1 lakh to brides under the Kalyana Lakshmi scheme, he pointed out, recalling how the BRS government under the leadership of former Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao had presented a tractor to every gram panchayat besides granting enough funds and taking up cleanliness programme under Palle Pragathi.

BRS leaders Vanteru Prathap Reddy, Devi Ravindar, Devi Srisailam and others were present.