Hyderabad, April 3 : The Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) on Wednesday alleged that the Congress government is deliberately not releasing water for irrigation because if crops grow, it will have to pay bonuses to farmers as promised by Congress in the Assembly elections.
BRS working president K. T. Rama Rao claimed that there was sufficient water in reservoirs but the government was hiding this as it did not want the cultivation of crops.
Addressing a press conference, he alleged that the non-release of water has led to the withering of crops over lakhs of acres.
He also claimed that the government did not release water from the Kaleshwaram project as it wanted to malign former chief minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao (KCR) with baseless allegations. He said if the Medigadda barrage had been repaired in three months, crops would not have dried up.
He claimed that when KCR left for inspection of withered crops in Jangaon district, the government released water from pump houses under the Kaleshwaram project.
To divert people’s attention from these real problems, the government is raising other issues, he said.
“Don’t open party gates for politics, open gates of projects for people. Focus on water tapping not on phone tapping,” he remarked.
Disputing the Chief Minister’s claim that there was a monsoon failure last year, KTR cited the IMD report that there were sufficient rains.
KTR blamed the government’s inefficiency over the drinking water problem in the state.
The BRS government built a project like Mission Bhagiratha for supplying drinking water to every household but the Congress government has failed to even use it effectively, he said.
He wondered if Chief Minister Revanth Reddy was taking revenge on Hyderabad for not voting for Congress by not supplying water despite availability.
KTR demanded that the government supply water tankers to people for free.
On Revanth Reddy’s remark that KCR was like a demonetised note of Rs 1,000, KTR stated that Congress leader Rahul Gandhi is an “invalid note” in the country.
On the Chief Minister’s challenge to KCR to send a list of 200 farmers who ended lives in 100 days of Congress rule as claimed by him, the latter said the list would be sent to Revanth Reddy and sought compensation of Rs 25 lakh each for families of deceased.
