KTR turns Revanth’s criminal waste barb on Rahul, demands apology

BRS working president K. T. Rama Rao has urged Rahul Gandhi to direct Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy to withdraw his alleged remarks on engineering students and issue an unconditional apology, warning that silence would amount to political endorsement of the comments.

Hyderabad: Putting Congress Lok Sabha leader Rahul Gandhi on the defensive, BRS working president KT Rama Rao BRS demanded an unconditional public apology to the country’s students, engineers and teachers over Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy’s remarks calling engineering students as criminal waste. He warned Rahul Gandhi that silence over the Chief Minister’s comments amounted to political endorsement.

He also sought Rahul Gandhi to direct Revanth Reddy to withdraw the remarks and tender an unconditional apology. “The engineers building India’s digital economy… are not criminal waste, but the country’s greatest national assets,” he affirmed.

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In a sharply worded four-page letter, Rama Rao asked whether the remarks reflected the Congress party’s official position on students, engineers and the youth. He reminded that India’s youth were among the country’s greatest strengths and described engineers, scientists, teachers, students and entrepreneurs as contributors to the nation’s technological and economic progress. They deserved admiration, encouragement and respect—not humiliation, he said.

He argued that Rahul Gandhi bore both political and moral responsibility as the Congress leader who campaigned for the party in Telangana and personally chose Revanth Reddy as Chief Minister.

The BRS working president said the Chief Minister’s remarks were not mere political comments but an insult to lakhs of engineering students, their parents and teachers. He said a Chief Minister branding engineers as criminal waste, diminished not the engineers but the dignity of the constitutional office he held.

He accused Revanth Reddy of following a pattern of disparaging students and young people. He cited the Chief Minister’s earlier comments terming the university students as a “beer and biryani batch”, dismissing student movements as the work of “thugs”, and making derogatory remarks against teachers.

Reminding the history of youth-led political movements including resistance to the Emergency and the Telangana statehood movement, Rama Rao said India’s youth repeatedly demonstrated that their self-respect cannot be insulted or ignored. He recalled the Telangana statehood movement, in which lakhs of young people fought for statehood under K Chandrashekhar Rao’s leadership.

Targeting Rahul Gandhi, Rama Rao questioned the credibility of his speeches on democracy, constitutional morality and the dignity of youth if such comments went without accountability within his own party. He said such speeches would lose credibility if the Congress leadership remained silent when its own Chief Minister allegedly humiliated students and teachers.

He warned that Telangana’s youth were watching the government’s actions and would respond through the ballot box. “Political power is always temporary,” he said, asserting that the verdict of an awakened generation would be more enduring.