Hyderabad: Finance minister T. Harish Rao ripped into the BJP camp, accusing the Narendra Modi-led government at the Centre of failing on all fronts, including the slowdown in the nation’s economic growth and its inability to curb the rising prices, and that the Telangana government is in a much better financial situation than the Central government.
As the BJP-led government at the Centre failed on all fronts in the last nine years of its governance, Harish said during a more than two-hour long debate on the state Budget 2023–24 in the Assembly on Wednesday, the nation is looking to Telangana as a model of development and a progressive leader like KCR to lead the country.
With the absence of Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao and minister K.T. Rama Rao in the House, Harish Rao single-handedly took the entire Opposition to task, mainly the BJP. “Ab Ki Baar, Kisan Sarkar’ is the new slogan that the entire country is chanting today. This has become a common slogan across the country, whether east, west, north, and south of India. People want “Rythu Rajyam” (farmers rule) like in Telangana, and a farmer-friendly and people-friendly leader like KCR,” he remarked.
Allaying fears expressed by the Opposition parties, including the Congress and the BJP, that the state government has increased tax and non-tax revenue targets in the Budget by nearly Rs 40,000 crore with a “hidden agenda” of increasing taxes and charges, Harish Rao categorically stated that, “We have no plans to impose fresh taxes or charges on people to meet the higher Rs 1.30 lakh tax revenue target set in the new Budget.
We will mobilise additional resources by increasing efficiency in collections.” After outlining the accomplishments of the BRS government in the last nine years, Harish rather “sarcastically” listed those of the BJP-led government at the Centre. “The Modi government also has many achievements to its credit. First and foremost, in bringing down India’s GDP, in diluting food security scheme, in increasing country’s debt burden to Rs 160 lakh crore, in fleecing people in the name of various cesses, in taking cylinder price sky high, imposing GST on milk, in toppling democratically elected governments, in using CBI, I-T, ED for raids against the opposition leaders, in increasing the wealth of Adani, and in trying to get political mileage even from G-20 chairmanship which each country gets on a rotation basis.”
He claimed that the TS government’s debt position and financial condition was better than the Centre and it could have been even better had the Centre released Rs 1.30 lakh crore rightful share to TS in tax devolution and grants in the last nine years.
Claiming that the BJP government at the Centre is a government of “deceptions”, he said, “Promise of providing two crore jobs a year, doubling farmers’ income, strong LokPal Bill, linking of rivers. All these are dhoka (deceptions).”
Further, Harish took special permission from the Speaker to show a video on his IPad of BJP Huzurabad MLA Etala Rajender attacking the BJP for discriminating against Telangana while addressing the Assembly as the former finance minister when he was with the TRS (now BRS).
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