Congress stiffling Opposition in Assembly, says Harish Rao

Talking to reporters after Tuesday's session, Harish Rao said the Opposition should be allowed to have its say in a democratic setup and this basic principal was undermined in the House.

Hyderabad: BRS leader and former Minister T Harish Rao on Tuesday said the main opposition party in the Assembly, the BRS, was denied an opportunity to speak and when the BRS members tried to speak out, they were denied the mike.

Talking to reporters after Tuesday’s session, Harish Rao said the Opposition should be allowed to have its say in a democratic setup and this basic principal was undermined in the House. The House, which met for the day at 10 am, was adjourned within less than a hour for taking the legislators from all political parties to the Medigadda Barrage. Despite repeated attempts, Harish Rao did not get an opportunity to speak.

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Only Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy and Legislative Affairs Minister D Sridhar Babu could speak to sum up the need to take legislators to the barrage. Calling this a serious violation of the traditions in the House, Harish Rao said the Opposition party should also be given an opportunity whenever the treasury benches were allowed to speak. Stating that Medigadda barrage alone would not make the Kaleshwaram Lift irrigation Project, he pointed out that the KLIP had 3 barrages, 15 reservoirs, 19 sub-stations, 21 pump-houses, 203 km of tunnels, 1,531 km of gravity canal, 98 km of pressure mains, storage capacity for 141 tmc, lifts to draw water to a height of 530 metres and facilities for usage of 240 tmc of Godavari water.

The Congress government is seeking to use the Medigadda issue alone for its political mileage. If the exercise was meant for any genuine reason, the Chief Minister should have facilitated a visit to any of the major reservoirs including the Ranganayaka Sagar which were flawless and continued to feed the people and sources in their command.

He said the sagging of pillars in Medigadda was an incident similar to that of the collapse of Punjagutta flyover pillar. The State had a similar experience with Devadula pipeline. He alleged that the Medigadda visit of the MLAs was intended to divert public attention from the Nalgonda public meeting where BRS president K Chandrashekhar Rao would be speaking on the surrender of the Krishna projects to the KRMB.

If the government was sincere in its approach to the project, it must strive to rehabilitate the Medigadda barrage well before the onset of monsoons. A host of party leaders, Kadiam Srihari, Ch Mallareddy, Vemula Prashant Reddy and P Sabitha Indra Reddy were among those present.