K Venkateshwarlu
Hyderabad
Dismissing KCR’s claims of development Nalgonda Congress MP N. Uttam Kumar Reddy said that Telangana is number one only in per capita debt, per capita liquor consumption and corruption.
He said that the per capita debt of Telangana at the time of its formation was around Rs 18,157. Now with Telangana’s debts increasing to over Rs 4 lakh crore, the per capita debt has increased by almost five times to about Rs 1,20,000.
He pointed out that KCR had promised to make a Dalit the Chief Minister of Telangana. But the Dalit leader who was made Deputy Chief Minister in 2014 was refused a party ticket for the forthcoming elections.
The Madigas, another major Dalit community, have not been given representation in the Cabinet. Not even a single ticket has been given to the Mudiraj community, an important BC community in Telangana, he said.
Uttam and his wife, former MLA N. Padmavathi, submitted their applications for Congress tickets from Huzurnagar and Kodad Assembly constituencies at the Gandhi Bhavan on Friday. Later, he held a press conference at the Gandhi Bhavan and criticised the BRS government.
Uttam accused KCR of cheating Muslims by promising 12% reservation. He said that KCR had lied to the Assembly in 2014, claiming that he had spoken to Prime Minister Modi and that the latter had agreed to provide 12% reservation for Muslims. He said that the 4% Muslim reservation given by the Congress government was continuing and that the KCR government had not been able to increase it even by 1%.
Uttam said that BRS MLAs were treating their constituencies as personal fiefdoms and engaging in widespread corruption. He accused them of looting Telangana through the sand, land, mine and liquor mafias.
He also said that BRS leaders were misusing the police to harass political opponents and suppress voices against their corruption. He said that BRS MLAs had formed “gangs of thieves” to control these mafias.
The Congress leader said that BRS leaders were taking huge bribes from the beneficiaries of the Dalit Bandhu and double-bedroom house schemes. He said that these schemes had been turned into major scams by BRS leaders, who were more interested in exploiting people than in helping them. He said that bribes were taken even before the money was transferred to beneficiaries.
Many beneficiaries of the Dalit Bandhu scheme from the Gudibandi village of Kodad spoke at the press conference held at the Gandhi Bhavan. They described how local BRS leaders had forced them to pay bribes of up to Rs 5 lakh out of the Rs 10 lakh they were supposed to receive as per the scheme.
