Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) leader and Minister for Finance and Health T. Harish Rao has observed that Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) president A. Revanth Reddy is proving himself to be the true successor of former Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh N. Chandrababu Naidu, who in the past had said that “practising agriculture is a waste exercise”.
Speaking at a meeting held at Telangana Bhavan here on Sunday, where Congress leaders and others from Zaheerabad constituency joined the BRS, Mr. Rao said while Mr. Naidu said agriculture was an unfruitful exercise, Mr. Revanth Reddy was of the view that only three-hour free power was enough based on the logic that a majority of farmers in Telangana were with land-holding upto 3 acres.
He sought to know how could Mr. Revanth Reddy change his word on power supply position in Telangana during the Congress regime in combined AP, when he was with TDP, as it was he who said that there was no supply even to take bath at borewells after attending funerals. He pointed out that bursting of transformers and burning of motors were a regular feature during the previous Congress regime.
Citing an example of power supply position during the previous Congress regime, Mr. Harish Rao said during a visit of legislators to the then Energy Minister Ponnala Lakshmaiah’s native village Kilasapur in Jangaon district, farmers there had complained about withering of crops as they were not getting even 3-hour supply. Now, even 6-7 hour supply was also not being given in Congress-ruled States such as Karnataka, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, he stated.
Further, it was also a regular practice for Congress and TDP to come to Assembly with empty pitchers and withered crops to highlight the issues of problems in power supply whenever they were in the opposition, but such scenes were not repeated during the last nine years of BRS governance. He said debate on power supply would be beneficial only to BRS and counter productive to Congress, as wide as it goes on.
He recollected that it was the Congress that had merged Telangana with Andhra and in the 1969 phase of statehood movement about 369 activists were killed by the then Congress Government. In 2004, the Congress had promised give statehood to Telangana if it was voted to power but went back after the win and diverted the rightful share of Krishna water to non-basin areas by expanding Pothireddypadu illegally.
