Hyderabad: While BRS president and Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao is still working on cobbling together alliances with national and regional parties to challenge the Narendra Modi government at the Centre, TPCC president A. Revanth Reddy indicated on Friday that the Congress was inclined to forge a tie-up with the Left parties to put up a fight against the BJP for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
Talking to the media during the fourth day of his Haath Se Haath Se Jodo padayatra, in Illendu of Khammam district, Revanth Reddy said that the Congress would form a coalition with the Communist parties at the national level to oppose the policies of the Centre and the Telangana state government. Revanth Reddy said, “It is left to the Communist parties whether or not they would be with the party of looters or the Congress,” in an allusion to the BRS with which the CPI and CPM intend to form an alliance for the Assembly elections.
Revanth Reddy went ballistic against Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao and his family, accusing them of “looting” the state in the name of development and claiming that the annual State Budget presented by finance minister T. Harish Rao was nothing more than a sham.
“Chandrasekhar Rao’s reign over the state is coming to an end. In the last 10 budgets during the TRS regime, the state government had spent a measly Rs 23 lakh crore. The government is supposed to allocate Rs 20,000 crore for each MLA constituency, but that has not happened during KCR ‘s rule. On the other hand, the government did not provide funds to several constituencies deliberately,” Revanth Reddy alleged.
The TPCC president stated that the state’s financial situation was dire and that there were arrears of Rs 5,000 crore for fee reimbursement and Rs 800 crore in Aarogyasri because of the lack of funds. Despite the government’s claims that it had spent thousands of crores on electricity purchases, there are still power outages in several towns. Further, the state government owed the electricity distribution companies around Rs 20,000 crore, he alleged.
“The state government paid Gujarat a large sum of money to buy outdated, sub-critical technology. Additionally, the government levies Advance Consumption Deposit (ACD) charges on people, which is against the rules. People should refuse to pay ACD fee,” he remarked. The TPCC president threatened to launch a strike in the same way that farmers and opposition parties protested against the Chandrababu Naidu government in 2000 over hiking the power tariff.
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