HYDERABAD: Terming the Congress and BJP as “anarchical forces”, MAUD Minister KT Rama Rao on Friday asked the people to never allow these parties to rule the State.
Rama Rao was referring to TPCC president A Revanth Reddy’s remarks on demolishing Pragathi Bhavan, the official residence of the Chief Minister, and BJP State president Bandi Sanjay’s announcement that the BJP if voted to power, would demolish the domes on the newly-constructed Secretariat complex named after Dr BR Ambedkar.
The minister was addressing the State Assembly when he said: “While we are working to build, develop and progress, one of them is telling people to dig graves and the other to demolish with bombs. Anarchical forces. I urge fellow members to give it a thought on what would happen to this State if it goes into the hands of these anarchical forces. I appeal to the people of Telangana, the peaceful State, not to put it in the hands of these fools by rejecting their politics,” Rama Rao said.
Protesting the “ill-treatment” of the Centre in sanctioning funds to Telangana, Rama Rao said that Narendra Modi has been acting as if he is the Prime Minister only for Gujarat. He said that all efforts to get a mega handloom cluster to Telangana, the Indian Institute of Handloom Technology, and the National Textile Research Institute have been in vain.
“When Hyderabad was flooded, the Centre did not give a single paisa, and when Gujarat was affected, Modi flew there to offer money. Don’t we have a PM or do we have someone else?” he said. He also took potshots at Union Minister G Kishan Reddy for not getting adequate funds for the State.
Rama Rao also criticised the Centre for privatising public sector undertakings and said that this has resulted in an employment loss for over nine lakh people, including 1.63 lakh SCs, around 1 lakh STs, and 1.98 lakh BCs.“Our policy is ‘start up’ and yours (Centre’s) is ‘pack up’,” the minister said.
Reeling off data on developmental activities taken up by the BRS government and the creation of infrastructure, the minister displayed a series of photographs of the transformation of two-tier and three-tier cities and towns across the State.
Stating that he himself pursued the ITIR project from June 2, the appointed day of Telangana when he was sworn in as IT Minister, Rama Rao said that though he met Union Ministers holding the portfolios of Communications, Electronics and Information Technology, the Centre did not respond till 2018.
“In July 2018, the Centre said the plan for ITIR had been discontinued and all activities suspended. BJP MLA Raghunandan Rao has blamed the Chief Minister for the Centre’s decision on ITIR. If his accusation has substance, why then was the ITIR project for Bengaluru also discontinued?” he asked.
Replying to a question, Rama Rao said that the State has attracted investments worth Rs 72,240 crore in the form of data centres by the top companies across the world. He said that Telangana has attracted investments worth US$ 47 billion in the IT sector and created 27 lakh jobs.
Responding to BJP MLA Eatala Rajender’s claim that the Centre did not have any plan to privatise Singareni Collieries Company Limited (SCCL), the minister said that the Union government’s insistence on States to import coal for power generation was intended to help business groups supported by the BJP.