Telangana: Harish Rao slams Congress government for its failure to deliver despite tall promises

Addressing a news conference at Telangana Bhavan, he accused the Revanth Reddy government of focusing more on cutting benefits than genuinely helping the poor. He highlighted that Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy, who made tall promises before coming to power, is now busy breaking them and betraying the people

Hyderabad: Coming down heavily on the Congress government for the yawning gap between its promises and fulfilment, BRS leader and former Minister T Harish Rao criticized its approach to the implementation of welfare schemes.

Addressing a news conference at Telangana Bhavan, he accused the Revanth Reddy government of focusing more on cutting benefits than genuinely helping the poor. He highlighted that Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy, who made tall promises before coming to power, is now busy breaking them and betraying the people.

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He pointed out that the first guarantee, Maha Lakshmi, was not implemented, and there was no progress on the last guarantee, Cheyutha.

The rest of the six guarantees are in a similar state, with cuts and restrictions everywhere. He accused the Congress government of using Republic Day announcements to mislead the public, calling it disgraceful.

In an open letter addressed to the Chief Minister, he said lakhs of people were being deprived of their benefits because norms followed by the government and the people are furious about it.

He stated that the Congress government’s actions are a curse on the poor and a burden on officials. He criticized the selection process for ration cards, which was based on data from the caste census and sent a predetermined list to the villages, ignoring lakhs of applications submitted through Mee Seva during the Praja Palana programme.

Rao defended the BRS government’s record, stating that during their 10-year rule, 6,47,479 ration cards were issued, and an additional 20,69,033 beneficiaries were provided ration support. He highlighted that the then Chief Minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao raised income limits to ensure more poor people received ration cards, But the Congress government’s focus remained mainly on imposing cuts and excluding beneficiaries.

Citing the OECD and World Bank data, he stated that inflation over the last decade averaged 5.42% annually, leading to a cumulative increase of 69.6% rise in prices. He demanded that the government revise income limits to Rs 2.55 lakh for rural areas and Rs 3.4 lakh for urban areas so that all eligible poor families can receive ration cards.

Rao criticized the Congress government’s promise of Rs 12,000 annually to agricultural labourers and stated that they are now imposing conditions that drastically reduced eligibility from 1 crore people to just 6 lakh. He emphasized that eligibility decisions should be made at the village level, by identifying actual labourers, instead of using manipulated data.

Rao called the denial of benefits to 94% of the labourers and restricting them to only six per cent was unjust. He noted that most agricultural labourers belong to SC, ST, and BC communities and they merit consideration for the benefit.