HYDERABAD: Questioning the timing of the ‘Dalitha Bandhu Scheme’, the Congress on Saturday, July 31, 2021, said if Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao was serious about the upliftment of SCs, he would have fulfilled all his poll promises made during the past seven years.
Speaking to mediapersons, former Minister and TPCC working president J Geetha Reddy alleged that Rao was once again trying to deceive the SC community in the name of a new scheme. “How can you expect him to be a well-wisher when he failed to stand by his promises, like making a Dalit the first CM of Telangana.
Till now, there is no clarification as to why Deputy CM Rajaiah was stripped of his position in the Cabinet. There is no discussion on a SC-ST sub-plan,” she said. While pointing out that even budgetary funds allocated to SCs were underutilised, she explained that during the past seven years, funds of out of Rs 85,000 allocated to SCs, only Rs 47,000 crore were spent. On the other hand, the government was yet to answer about the whereabouts of 38,000 crore funds meant for a sub-plan, she said.
“How can we believe that KCR would spend lakhs of crores for SCs’ development, when the budgetary funds remained underutilised. We are not against the government initiative of Dalit Bandhu but we seek its implementation throughout the State, without any precondition. It is no more a secret since KCR himself acknowledged that this flagship scheme was in view of the Huzurabad elections. Moreover, he is blackmailing SCs that if they fail to vote in Huzurabad, this scheme would not be extended to the entire State,” she added.