NEW DELHI: The Delhi police on Tuesday detained YSR Telangana Party (YSRTP) chief YS Sharmila after she and her cadre began marching towards the Parliament to stage a protest against the Telangana government's alleged Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Project scam.
"Every Indian should know this corruption, this scam is the biggest scam in India. To bring to the attention of Parliament, the magnitude of this scam, the YSR Telangana Party has decided to take out a march till Parliament just to throw light on the biggest scam of India," Sharmila told reporters at the Jantar Mantar in Delhi.
She said there are a number of irregularities in this Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Project which was originally planned by her father, the late Chief Minister of united Andhra Pradesh Dr YS Rajshekhar Reddy.
Sharmila said when he planned this project some 15 years ago, it was meant to cost Rs 38,000 Crores and irrigate 16 lakh acres of land.
"But after Mr KCR came to power, he hiked the cost of this project from Rs 38,000 Crore to Rs 1.2 lakh Crore. While Dr YSR's project was meant to irrigate 16 lakh acres of land, KCR said our project will irrigate 18 lakh acres of land. So my question is just to irrigate 2 lakhs more acres, you have escalated the project cost by more than three times...Even if it was meant to irrigate, it has never irrigated even half of the land," the YSRTP leader stated.
She further said that a Minister of the BRS party himself made an admission in the state Assembly that the Kaleshwaram project has irrigated 1.5 lakh acres of land.
Meanwhile, sources in the Delhi Police said she was taken to Parliament Street police station.