Telangana Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has demanded Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao tender an ‘unqualified apology’ to the people for failing to safeguard the interests of the State in sharing of the Krishna River water during the virtual Apex Council meeting held on Tuesday.
Party president Bandi Sanjay Kumar, in a virtual press conference, lambasted the Chief Minister for not highlighting the project like the Rayalaseema Lift Irrigation Scheme from Pothireddypadu during the meeting and claimed that not sending the agenda points to the Centre till a day before the scheduled meeting only reflected the ‘dubious’ stance.
The BJP leader questioned the CM’s stance and wondered why the aggressive tone which was displayed earlier on the ‘illegal’ projects being taken up by the Andhra Pradesh government was not highlighted in the meeting. “Chief Minister KCR conveniently wanted to shift the blame on the Centre for his lackadaisical approach towards the new irrigation projects being taken up by the neighbouring State as he had a tacit understanding with the Andhra Pradesh CM,” he charged.
Appreciating the Apex Council for releasing a press note on the proceedings held during the day, Mr. Sanjay Kumar said that otherwise the TRS government would have presented a different picture altogether. “It appears KCR had accepted the failure of his government in not preventing the construction of the projects denying TS the rightful share of water. There was no mention of AP using 170 TMC ft as against the allotted 114 TMC ft last year,” he said.
The TRS government did not bother to release funds for installing telemetric devices which could have provided details of the excess usage of the river water by the AP government, he said and also criticised the KCR for admitting in the meeting that the Palamuru-Rangareddy irrigation project was taken up despite not getting necessary approvals. It only means the project has been taken up to benefit the contractors, he added.
