HYDERABAD: A day after the state government held an all-party meeting on the Andhra Pradesh government’s Godavari-Banakacherla project, BRS MLA T Harish Rao alleged that Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy lacked knowledge on irrigation.
Speaking to reporters here on Thursday, Harish said: “Revanth Reddy has less knowledge and more venom when it comes to Telangana water projects.”
“Lies flowed like water at the meeting,” he said and added that the meeting tried to blame BRS president and former chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao for AP’s proposed Godavari-Banakacherla (G-B) project.
Stating that the all-party meeting was turned into a “political platform”, the former irrigation minister said that the chief minister “neither knows the basics of the irrigation sector nor has any knowledge of the basins of various rivers”.
“Revanth Reddy was seen asking the officials in which river basins Devadula and Banakacherla were located. It shows his lack of knowledge. Even schoolchildren know that Devadula was constructed across the Godavari,” he added.
Harish alleged that the way Revanth spoke at the meeting indicated that he was giving a green signal to the G-B project. “That’s why the CM said that they would be satisfied with 1,000 tmcft in Godavari and 500 tmcft in Krishna,” he alleged.
“It won’t be wrong if Revanth Reddy had to be hanged for his betrayal (of Telangana),” Harish Rao said and explained how BRS chief KCR fought for the rights of Telangana in river waters and demanded the Centre to refer the river water sharing under Section 3 of the Inter State Water Disputes Act, 1956.
Harish also found fault with the Irrigation advisor to the state government Adityanath Das for saying that Banakacherla was in Prakasam district. “The project is actually located in Nandyal area in Kurnool district,” he said.
He added sarcastically: “Like Ambika Darbar batti that represents the connection between God and a devotee, Adityanath Das serves as a link between AP Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu and his Telangana counterpart Revanth Reddy.”
Slamming Revanth for mocking KCR and saying that the latter had found “3,000 tmcft Brahma Padardham” in Godavari water, Harish presented data from the last 60 years to indicate the amount of Godavari water that has been going waste into the sea each year.
“On average, around 3,000 tmcft of water is going waste into the sea. KCR informed the same during the Apex Council meeting. But Revanth even distorted that fact too,” he added.