Rejecting the charges of BRS MLA T. Harish Rao that Telangana’s water interests were being compromised as silly, Minister for Irrigation N. Uttam Kumar Reddy said it was the BRS government that compromised with A.P. Chief Minister Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy when 8 to 10 TMC ft of water was being lifted from the Krishna basin by the A.P. government.
Speaking to reporters at the Secretariat, he said KCR and Jagan were closeted for hours together and none knew what transpired between them but KCR went silent when 8 to 10 TMC ft of water per day was being taken away by the Jagan government.
The same KCR government wanted to lift 2 TMCft from Godavari spending ₹80,000 crore while ignoring the 10 TMCft water that would have come to Telangana by gravity without spending a penny. “Mr. Harish Rao should explain this,” he charged.
Mr. Reddy also reminded that it was the BRS government that let go the Sileru project and 7 mandals of Khammam district to A.P. government. KCR did not question Prime Minister Narendra Modi on this and in fact, all that he sought was ‘just some love’ from him when the latter visited Telangana after the seven mandals and the Sileru project were snatched away from Telangana.
“Didn’t KCR say ‘bas aapka pyar chahiye’ without questioning Mr. Modi,” he asked and wanted to know the reasons for that silence. The BRS must stop this propaganda against the Congress government that it was compromising State’s interests. “People are aware of who did what and that is why they taught the BRS a lesson,” he said.
Mr. Uttam Kumar Reddy clarified that the Telangana government has not accepted the Centre’s proposal for handing over the projects to the Krishna River Management Board (KRMB). “When Chief Minister Revanth Reddy and I met the Union Minister recently, we asked him to call both the Chief Ministers for the meeting and only then Telangana government will make its position clear,” he said.
