KTR’s warnings come true, Congress caught in its own storm
K.T. Rama Rao’s warnings about phone tapping and the Congress-BJP nexus have gained traction after CM Revanth Reddy admitted surveillance and BJP MP CM Ramesh’s firm won a major contract linked to a controversial land deal. Congress faces unrest and mounting opposition attacks.
Hyderabad: Over a year ago, BRS working president K.T. Rama Rao warned that Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy was tapping the phones of his own Cabinet colleagues. That warning now seems accurate, with Revanth Reddy himself informally admitting his administration authorised such surveillance. While he attempted to brush it off stating that “all governments do”, it had definitely stoked unrest within the Congress ranks.
Four months ago, Rama Rao cautioned about the Congress-BJP nexus in the State. He flagged a Rs 10,000 crore fraud involving a BJP MP and revealed that the latter was instrumental in the Congress government mortgaging 400 acres of Kancha Gachibowli land for a loan, with inflated valuations and regulatory bypasses. His claim gained weight when a Supreme Court appointed Central Empowered Committee declared the land to be forest area and faulted the government for skipping due process, vindicating the former Minister’s statements.
The BRS working president had also predicted that the BJP MP behind the land deal, would be rewarded soon with a major contract. He promised to reveal the MP’s name after the contract was awarded by the Congress government. This week, he named BJP MP CM Ramesh from Andhra Pradesh, whose company, Rithwik Projects, has now been awarded a Rs 1,660 crore contract for the proposed “Future City” project.
With both controversies surfacing almost exactly as Rama Rao predicted, his warnings are fast gaining public attention. Surprisingly, neither the State government nor any Cabinet Minister has countered the allegations officially. The Congress response has been limited to stray political barbs, with no senior leader speaking against it in open.
Instead, some Congress leaders were seen expressing displeasure at Gandhi Bhavan and also the State Secretariat, over the Chief Minister snooping on the Cabinet Ministers and later, admitting to it before the media. They felt that the massive contracts awarded to the Andhra Pradesh MP who opposed the formation of Telangana State, has not gone down well, even within the party. They feared that these actions had only added more credibility to the BRS’s allegations about corruption, involvement of Andhra leaders in the State politics, and also Congress-BJP nexus.
Rama Rao’s early forecasts are proving right in real time, leaving the Congress struggling to hold on to the moral high ground it once claimed. The twin storms of phone tapping and the Kancha Gachibowli land row, have pushed the Congress onto the defensive. With local body elections approaching, these issues have only made the fight more intense as the Revanth Reddy government scrambles to explain and the opposition ready to pounce.
