HYDERABAD: Reacting to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s assertion in his speech in Ramagunda on Saturday that there was no proposal to privatise Singareni Colliers Company Ltd. (SCCL), TRS leaders said that the former was ‘peddling lies’ to mislead the people of Telangana. They alleged that the Centre offered four coal blocks for sale in the State through auction.
To corroborate their claims, the TRS leaders tweeted a document containing a question asked in Parliament by Nalgonda MP N Uttam Kumar Reddy seeking answer on whether the government decided to auction four coal blocks -- Kalyan Khani Block-6, Koyagudem Block-3, Sathupalli Block-6 and Shravanapalli --- instead of allocating the same to the Singareni Collieries Company Limited (SCCL) in Telangana on February 2, 2022.
In response to this question, Minister of Parliamentary Affairs, Coal and Mines, Pralhad Joshi categorically stated that the four coal blocks were allocated through an auction which was held by the Nominated Authority on December 15, 2021. With regard to allocating the same to SCCL, Pralhad said, “It was decided that there was no need for such reservation.”
Senior TRS leader and former MP Boianapalli Vinod Kumar asked, “Whether the statement of Union Minister Pralhad Joshi in Parliament is true or Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s statement in Ramagundam meeting is true?”
“The people are being misled.” Health Minister T Harish Rao too criticised the Centre taking to Twitter.
Speaking to TNIE, TRS social media convenor and chairman, TSMDC, Manne Krishank said that the prime minister blatantly lied during the meeting at Ramagundam. “These lies are not in isolation but organized. The same things were tweeted by BJP official twitter handle and BJP IT department in-charge Amit Malviya. We cannot assume that Modi was unaware of it, as he was intentionally misleading.”
Countering the BJP’s argument that SCCL is a State PSU (joint venture of government of Telangana and the Government of India with 51:49 equity) and the Centre alone cannot privatise it, Krishank said that the whole country knows how they are privatising the PSUs.