‘Support for KCR is dwindling’

KCR questioned on his ‘silence’ when Babli was being built, drying up SRSP

The Congress has ridiculed Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao on his grandiose Sriramsagar project revival and restoration initiative saying that he has not spoken even once as a parliamentarian when the Babli project was being constructed that almost stopped inflows into the Sriramsagar Project (SRSP).

“Congress leaders agitated against the Babli project and moved the court but Mr. Rao did not speak against it in the Parliament nor did he agitate. It shows how concerned he was about Telangana projects,” the Congress leaders said.

Addressing separate press conferences, TPCC working president Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka and AICC secretary Madhu Yashki Goud said Mr. Rao is trying to leave his mark on the projects completed by the Congress by laying new foundation stones.

Mr. Madhu Yashki claimed that the Chief Minister’s meeting at Pochampad was a reflection of his dwindling support. He questioned as to why Mr. Rao was in TDP till 2000 when he claimed that he had taken a pledge on separate Telangana in 1996 at the SRSP. The re-designing is nothing but helping the Andhra contractors who have become dear to him now,” he alleged.

Mr. Vikramarka said Mr. Rao is misleading people as if the project is dead and that he is reviving it. “The kind of public money spent on the foundation stone on Thursday was perhaps not even spent for the SRSP inauguration by the Congress,” he said. He said Mr. Rao is going in for re-designing of projects as if he is an engineer himself without understanding the financial repercussions.

Mr. Vikramarka said that he would take up self-respect yatra in Telangana after seeking permission from the party high command and after discussing it with the local leadership to expose how the TRS government is suppressing people’s rights, particularly the downtrodden.

Action against SP sought

At a separate press conference, senior leader V. Hanumantha Rao said suspension of a Sub Inspector for the Nerella incident is an effort to dilute the issue. He said if the Sircilla SP responsible for the third degree torture of the victims was not suspended by the month-end, he would sit on a hunger strike in Nerella.

Mr. Rao said Minister K.T. Rama Rao was forced to console Nerella victims in the hospital and that too secretly with the help of the police.