The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) accused Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao of “shedding crocodile tears” on the Andhra Pradesh government trying to take the lion's share in Krishna waters through the Pothireddypadu lift irrigation scheme and questioned why he did not send a single communication to the Centre on the contentious project till date.
Party president Bandi Sanjay Kumar in an ‘open letter’ to the Chief Minister, a copy of which was released to the media on Sunday, charged Mr. Rao of trying to shift the entire blame on the Centre on the sharing of Krishna river waters whereas he had actually “forged a secret understanding with AP Chief Minister Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy” on the issue.
Objecting to the contents of the letter written by Mr. Rao to Union Water Resources Minister Gajendra Shekawat, Mr. Sanjay Kumar questioned the timing of the communication when the Apex Council meeting has been scheduled to be held in the next few days.
“The letter is full of lies and falsehoods. It is only meant to divert people's attention to cover up for the TRS government’s failure to safeguard the legitimate water rights of Telangana,” he charged.
The BJP leader, also Karimnagar MP, charged that despite being warned, Mr. Rao did not react when the AP government had called for tenders for raising the capacity of the Pothireddypadu irrigation scheme as had a "tacit pact" with AP CM due to their common objective of calling for big project tenders only to “benefit the contractors”.
In fact, it was his letter to the Centre objecting to the new proposal to increase the capacity of the lift irrigation scheme that the Apex Council meeting has been called for and this too Mr. Rao ensured was postponed, allowing the tenders to be finalised in the meantime, claimed Mr. Sanjay Kumar.
He demanded Mr. Rao to “confess” about the pact with AP CM on accepting 299 TMC for TS and 512 TMC for AP when it was actually entitled to 555 TMC of Krishna water. The Centre is anyway duty bound to implement the verdict of the tribunal and the Supreme Court orders on this issue, hence both CMs should desist from their respective “duplicitous stances and mislead the Telugu people”, said the party president.
