HYDERABAD: Announcing that her party would contest the Khairatabad byelection, Telangana Rakshana Sena chief Kalvakuntla Kavitha on Saturday appealed to voters to “teach the Congress a lesson”.
Kavitha alleged that the state government’s failure to properly administer the healthcare system was resulting in thousands of infant deaths every year.
Referring to the recent infant deaths at RIMS in Adilabad, she said data shared with her by a friend had revealed the condition of healthcare in the state. She said the figures contained “shocking and bitter realities” and that she could not sleep for two days after going through them.
According to the data presented by Kavitha, around 6,000 infants died in government hospitals in 2020-21, 4,933 in 2022-23 and 3,853 in 2024-25. She claimed that up to 200 infants were dying every year in almost every district.
Kavitha said 1,046 children had died in Hyderabad and questioned how the government could remain indifferent to the deaths of newborns despite advances in modern medicine. She also alleged that the government had promised to allocate 10% of the budget to healthcare but was spending less than 5%.
Kavitha questioned the health minister’s response to the Adilabad deaths and alleged that he had visited RIMS only after the incident despite the Congress government being in power for two-and-a-half years.
On allegations concerning her assets, Kavitha said she was ready to return any amount if anyone could prove that she possessed even Rs 1 more than what she had declared in her election affidavit. She also said the officers committee examining the farmhouses of K Chandrasekhar Rao and KT Rama Rao was “meaningless”. “What’s the outcome of such committees constituted in several cases, including the phone-tapping case?. Such probes are being used by Revanth Reddy as part of his attention diversion scheme,” she alleged.