KTR should use this visit to put the record straight on the funds the central government collects from Telangana in the form of taxes and the funds it sends back to Telangana. Even KTR made these claims on many occasions, both online, especially on Twitter, and offline, during press briefings and at public meetings.
Kalvakuntla Taraka Ramarao (KTR), working president of the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) party, is in Delhi. News reports suggest that KTR, having met Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Friday, plans to meet Union Home Minister Amit Shah and other Union Cabinet Ministers as well during his stay in Delhi.
The BRS working president’s visit comes less than a week after Union Minister Gangapuram Kishan Reddy gave a three-hour presentation on the funds the Central government had spent in Telangana – busting the BRS’s fake narrative. The BRS has repeatedly claimed that the Center collects more taxes from Telangana than the funds it devolves on Telangana.
KTR should use this visit to put the record straight on the funds the central government collects from Telangana in the form of taxes and the funds it sends back to Telangana.Even KTR made these claims on many occasions, both online, especially on Twitter, and offline, during press briefings and at public meetings. On one such occasion, at a public meeting, KTR said: “Write it down. I am saying this as a Minister of our state. I am saying this authoritatively. I am giving an official account. If I am wrong, I will throw out my minister job like my left foot’s chappal.
In these seven and a half years, the Telangana government and the Telangana people paid three lakhs sixty-five thousand seven hundred and ninety-seven crores (3,65,797 crore). Do you know what we got in return? We got one lakh sixty-eight thousand six hundred and forty-seven crores (1,68,497 crore). Our two lakh crores (2,00,000 crores) went to the Center. Where did those 2 lakh crores go? They went to Uttar Pradesh, where some guy named Yogi (vaadevado Yogi anta) bulldozes houses – our money went to UP for those bulldozers. It went to UP, MP, Bihar, and other backward states ruled by the BJP. That’s where the sweat and blood of Telangana people went.” He then commented that the Telangana unit BJP leadership ought to feel ashamed and wanted the BJP brass to gain some education and knowledge on the topic.
Aside from the uncouth language KTR used, my first reaction to his’s statements was more of disbelief – disbelief at the ignorant claims made. How could a supposedly competent, well-educated minister not know the basics of government finances? Only after many more BRS leaders and ministers repeated the lie did my reaction turn into disgust at the blatant falsehood spread by BRS leaders to deceive those who had elected them.
Without even getting into numbers, two things were immediately apparent. Firstly, KTR mentioned that the Telangana government – and – the Telangana public paid the Central government more than three lakh sixty thousand crores in taxes. Everyone knows only the Central government shares its tax revenues with state governments. State governments give nothing more to the Center.
Apart from sending funds to state governments, the Central government also spends directly on the welfare and development of the states and citizens through its agencies. Secondly, though KTR mentioned he was giving official numbers, the numbers he presented regarding the total taxes collected by the Center from Telangana differ from those officially released by the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT). He claimed that the residents of Telangana paid the central government a sum of 92,871 crore in income taxes for the years 2019-20 and 2020-21. On the other hand, the Time Series data released by the CBDT puts that number (personal plus corporate income tax) at just one-third of what KTR claimed – that is, only 29,900crore. KTR provided neither sources nor tax head break-up for the taxes he claims the central government collected from Telangana, casting a shadow on his claims. Union Minister Kishan Reddy’s ‘Report to the People of Telangana’drove the final nail into the coffin of lies BRS was spreading. The 321-slide thorough presentation provided numbers and included evidence for each number through budgetary, parliamentary, and other official government of India documents. And here are the facts. In the last eight years, the state government received more than 1.68 lakh crore directly from the central government as tax devolution and GST compensation.
During the same period, the Central government spent 4.99 lakh crore in Telangana for its residents welfare and the state’s development. So, instead of diverting 2 lakh crore from Telangana, the Central government had channeled an additional 3 lakh crore to Telangana – even going by KTR’s tax revenue numbers, however flawed they may be.
Proved wrong, will KTR keep the ‘I will quit promise’? Will the BRS party leaders at least apologise for their false claims? Or will the party shrug it away as part of the “maximum politics, minimum governance” model that their government practices?
(The author is BJP TS spokesperson)
