Telangana Assembly Session: BRS ready for discussion on river water sharing, irrigation projects, says KTR

BRS working president KT Rama Rao criticized the Telangana government’s handling of river water projects, alleged stalling of Palamuru-Rangareddy scheme, and diversions like phone tapping probes. He defended BRS achievements and warned of political maneuvers ahead of municipal polls

Hyderabad: BRS working president KT Rama Rao affirmed that the party legislators were fully prepared for discussions on Krishna and Godavari rivers water sharing and irrigation projects among other issues in the Assembly. However, he doubted whether Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy and his Ministers had grasp on the subject and suspected that they might divert discussion from the government’s failures.

In an informal interaction with the media at the Telangana Assembly on Monday, Rama Rao said the Chief Minister lacked basic knowledge of river basins and major dams, which was evident from his previous remarks on the river basins and project locations.

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“The Congress wants discussion on irrigation, but they don’t even know what they want to discuss,” he said, adding that the government appeared to be preparing only after learning that BRS chief and Opposition leader K Chandrashekhar Rao would attend the session.

He pointed out that the Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Scheme was completed within three years under the Chandrashekhar Rao government due to firm political will, unlike projects such as Polavaram that have dragged on for decades. He said Revanth Reddy was deliberately stalling Palamuru-Rangareddy project to deny credit to Chandrashekhar Rao and avoid a political fallout.

The Sircilla MLA ridiculed the Congress government’s argument that Telangana received 299 TMCft share in the Krishna River due to the previous BRS government, holding the Congress squarely responsible for allocating 299 TMCft in undivided Andhra Pradesh. He reminded that it was the BRS government which pushed the Centre to reconsider the allocations under Section 3. He also warned that accepting a reduced allocation of 45 TMC for the Palamuru-Rangareddy project would harm Telangana.

He said there were allegations that explosives were used to damage the Medigadda barrage. He questioned why no inquiry had been ordered despite engineers complaining about it and named Raghava Construction as the firm involved in the check-dam works.

On the issue of alleged phone tapping, Rama Rao said intelligence systems had existed since Independence for law and order and State security. Questioning whether the Congress government was not conducting surveillance on the political opponent and also the Ministers and other top functionaries within the government, he asked why officials were not addressing the issue publicly and accused the government of dragging matters through SITs and inquiries without results.

“These are diversions. People are seeing through them,” he said, citing the BRS’s performance in recent panchayat elections.

He suspected that the government might even arrest him in either the phone tapping case or the Formula E case, ahead of the municipal polls to create obstacles for the BRS. However, he declared that the party will emerge victorious, despite his absence.

The BRS working president also challenged the Congress government’s debt narrative against the previous BRS regime, asking how Rs 2.5 lakh crore was spent in 24 months under the Congress rule.

Rama Rao asserted that he would ignore personal attacks but would not tolerate insults directed at BRS chief Chandrashekhar Rao. He said the Chief Minister resorted to abusive language only to evade answering to questions raised by the Opposition leader on water issues recently. Responding to the Chief Minister coming to greet the Opposition leader in the Assembly, he welcomed any courteous engagement between political rivals, adding that respect for KCR as the architect of Telangana statehood was widespread.

On the merger of peripheral municipalities in GHMC, Rama Rao termed the move as unscientific and driven by financial motives. He demanded a detailed discussion in the Assembly on the issue.

Amid rumours of defected MLAs trying to return to the BRS fold, he reiterated that the party leadership had shut the doors for them and was focusing on developing new and strong leaders in those constituencies with focus on the next Assembly elections.