Telangana’s once pro-active government now specialises in ‘U’ turns

One step forward, two steps backward has been the functioning style that is becoming all the more identifiable with the Congress as it completes one year in power

Hyderabad: Telangana was once praised by world leaders for having a pro-active, fast moving (remember Foxconn Chairman Young Liu’s ‘Telangana Speed’ remark) and foresighted government. Those were the days when the BRS was at the helm. That image, however, is fast crumbling. The Congress dispensation in the State now appears to be fast building a dubious recognition for flip flop decisions over different issues. One step forward, two steps backward has been the functioning style that is becoming all the more identifiable with the Congress as it completes one year in power.

Right from the decision to reject the Rs.100 crore donation from the Adani Group, to the retracted orders on assessment of Class 10 students, the ‘U’ turn on decisions taken by the State government in the last one week alone reflects the state of governance in Telangana.

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On Tuesday, Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy said the State government has decided to turn down the Rs.100 crore donations for Skills University announced by Adani Group. This was after earlier defending the investments and donation from Adani Group.

During the recent assembly elections in Maharashtra, the Chief Minister had openly defended Adani Group’s investments in Telangana. However, soon after Congress MP Rahul Gandhi spoke against deals with the Adani Group, Revanth Reddy’s bus with Adani screeched to a halt and the donation was “rejected”.

Soon after this came the Lagacherla embarrassment. This was after several attempts to put up a brave face against the relentless fight put up by tribal farmers in Lagacherla and other villages against the Chief Minister’s pet Pharma Village project in his own constituency. With attempts to pull conspiracy theories out of the air against the BRS backfiring, and national agencies including the National Human Rights Commission descending on Lagacherla, Revanth Reddy first tried to say that there was no proposal for a pharma village and came up with an industrial corridor story.

Even that version changed with the State government withdrawing the controversial land acquisition notification on Friday. Interestingly, on Saturday, the government took another U-turn, and a fresh notification was issued for acquiring land, this time with the announced purpose being a multipurpose industrial park.

The U-turns did not end there. On Thursday, the State government issued a memo to award 100 percent marks to external assessments in SSC public examinations without any marks for internal assessments from the academic year 2024-25. The orders did not stand straight even for 24 hours. On Friday, the government took a U turn on awarding 100 percent marks to external assessments and decided to retain the existing assessment system i.e., 80 percent marks to external assessment and 20 percent to internal assessment for the academic year 2024-25 only.

The government also decided to implement allotment of 100 percent marks to external assessment in the SSC examination from the academic year 2025-26.

Repeated U-turns make a circle, and that is how the Revanth Reddy administration appears to be functioning.,