Hyderabad: The ongoing budget sessions in the Telangana assembly on Saturday witnessed a heated exchange between BRS senior leader and former minister T Harish Rao and chief minister A Revanth Reddy and other senior ministers.
During the discussion on the budget, Harish Rao accused the Congress government of attempting to erase the excellent work done by the BRS government in the last 10 years.
In a strong counter-and-scathing attack, Revanth Reddy said that the 10 years of BRS rule were full of corruption and scams. He added that Harish Rao was trying to distort facts and mislead the public.
During the post-budget discussion on Saturday, Harish Rao also found fault with unrealistic revenue projections in the budget. Harish Rao stated that during the last eight months of Congress rule, law and order had deteriorated in Telangana, and he listed the number of rapes, murders, and other criminal activities that had occurred in Hyderabad and its surrounding areas. He expressed his objection to the Congress' proposal to raise funds through the sale of government land.
Reacting to Harish Rao, the chief minister said, “Harish Rao's speech is full of lies. People are not ready to trust the opposition party. People gave a mandate against the BRS and punished them in public court. The opposition remained unchanged and made false statements. The previous BRS government sold out the Outer Ring Road for a meager Rs 7,000 crore. In a sheep distribution scam, the opposition BRS leaders swindled crores of rupees. In the prestigious Batukamma saree distribution scheme, there was a lot of corruption. The previous government exploited women's sentiments. The innocent Kuruma and Yadav communities were the intended beneficiaries of the looted crores of rupees. The opposition leaders gave conflicting figures on the expenditure incurred on the Kaleshwaram project. Now, they are saying Rs 94,000 crore.”
Revanth Reddy also said that he was ready to make public the statistical data of the lands worth crores of rupees sold out in the last government.
He also pointed out that there has been no progress on the Palamuru project in the last 10 years. He added that despite spending Rs 20,000 crore on the Palamuru project, it remained uncompleted.
“The district of Rangareddy has become a barren wasteland. Rangareddy district has been neglected. The district has sold off most of its valuable lands, yet it lacks any irrigation facilities. It is not good on the part of BRS to speak lies, even after people rejected the party in the Lok Sabha elections. Harish Rao is misleading the house by making false comments,” Revanth Reddy said.