Telangana Congress plans to stage a protest at the Srisailam Left Bank Canal (SLBC) on June 2, the Formation Day of Telangana, to highlight the injustice to Telangana with the Andhra Pradesh government deciding to enhance water withdrawal from Pothireddypadu head regulator and the ‘silence’ of Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao on it.
At a press conference here, TPCC president N. Uttam Kumar Reddy along with Bhongir MP Komatireddy Venkata Reddy and Malkajgiri MP A. Revanth Reddy questioned the silence of the Chief Minister on the issue when AP Chief Minister YS Jaganmohan Reddy announced his decision in their Assembly in December last. “Was he silent because of their friendship or for some other reasons,” Mr. Uttam Reddy sought to know.
Objecting to KCR’s reaction to their criticism, he said Congress had every right to question the Chief Minister if his actions were against the interests of Telangana. “This is not the internal problem of the Chief Minister but a serious issue of Telangana’s future,” he said reminding that they convinced Sonia Gandhi over Telangana because of such injustice.
Rightful share
Mr. Reddy alleged that KCR was silent on AP government using 4 TMC of water per day while he was spending ₹ 1.5 lakh crore for Kaleshwaram project to draw 2 TMC water per day. “What credibility he has to discuss on utilisation of Godavari waters giving up the rightful share of Telangana in Krishna,” he asked.
Mr. Revanth Reddy said the GO increasing the withdrawal capacity from Pothireddypadu to 44,000 cusecs was released on September 13, 2005 but KCR did not utter a single word on it. Similarly, he came out of the UPA cabinet on August 20, 2006 and did not talk about the issue even then. It was the late P. Janardhan Reddy who fought on the issue continuously and not KCR and claimed that Mr. Jagan had the full backing of KCR while releasing the new GO.
Flood level
The Malakajgiri MP asked how can the AP government claim it would draw only flood waters when it was planning to withdraw from 790 ft level. Flood water can be withdrawn only from 885 ft, he pointed out.
Mr. Komatireddy put the responsibility on KCR for the AP government’s decision and said this was a conspiracy to benefit Rayalaseema at the cost of South Telangana. He said the CM wilfully ignored the projects launched by the previous Congress governments though only 30% works were pending. He also took objection to Council Chairman Gutta Sukhender Reddy making political statements and said he seems to have forgotten about his Constitutional position.