HYDERABAD: Former Munugode MLA Komatireddy Rajagopal Reddy hit out at Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao asking him to apologise to the people of Munugode constituency before addressing a public meeting there on August 20 and wondering what development he had brought about to the constituency.
Questioning what face the Chief Minister would have before the people when he has not given a single rupee for the development of the constituency in the last eight-and-a-half years, Reddy said that only after Union Minister for Home Amit Shah’s meeting on August 21 in Munugode was declared, the Chief Minister has planned the public meeting.
BJP MLA Eatala Rajender accused the ruling party of using the same tactics in Munugode as it resorted to during the Huzurabad byelection, where police were used to harass people’s representatives by either luring them with money or intimidating them into submission.
Addressing the media at BJP’s party office in Nampally on Friday, Rajender alleged that Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao’s desperation to reduce the impact of the BJP’s meeting was reflected in his scheduling his public meeting in Munugode on August 20, just a day before Amit Shah’s.
‘TRS MLAs using cash as lure’
“Two TRS MLAs have been assigned to each mandal in the constituency, and they are going around with police escorts and cash. They are luring the sarpanches, MPTCs, MPPs and ZPTCs who are against the State government, by fixing a price on each of them. As soon as Choutuppal MPP T Venkat Reddy joined the BJP, police started filing cases against him and harassing his family in the middle of the night in the name of investigation. They are trying to book him under the Preventive Detention,” Rajagopal said.
Kaleshwaram issue
He also demanded that the State government should form a committee comprising irrigation engineers to find out the causes of the submergence of Kaleshwaram pump houses at Annaram, towns and villages in the floods last month.Daring the CM to a debate on the submergence, he claimed that it not because of record inflows in the Godavari River, but due to the CM not following the advice of the engineers.
Also accusing KCR of trying to get works done for lifting the 3 tmcft water from Kaleshwaram in addition to the existing capacity of 2 tmcft which are delivered through gravity canals solely for the purpose of making money, he questioned why pipelines for the 3rd tmcft were ordered after inflating the costs from Rs 16,000 crore to Rs 32,000 crore.
He questioned why Opposition leaders, people’s organisations, media and engineers were being prevented from entering the project’s site. He wanted to know if the State government was afraid that some secret could be exposed.