Dissolve Parliament and announce a midterm election, KTR dares the BJP

“Its slogan ‘Sab ka Saath, Sab ka Vikas’ has, in practice, become ‘Sab Kuch Bakwas’,” he contended.

He slammed BJP leaders for repeatedly saying that Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao had turned the state into a pile of debt.

“Prior to Narendra Modi, India had 14 prime ministers. All of them together had raised debt of ₹56 lakh crore. But Modi, since 2014, has borrowed ₹100 lakh crore. Now, let the BJP leaders tell me who has borrowed more. In India, every citizen has a debt burden of ₹1.25 lakh,” he said.

Budget bother

Referring to the ensuing Parliament session, KTR wanted the BJP to atone for its sins of not doing anything for Telangana by making generous allocations.

Watch Live: BRS Working President, Minister Sri @KTRBRS Press Meet in Nizamabad. https://t.co/nEipdydTSi

— BRS Party (@BRSparty) January 28, 2023

“The BJP would be presenting its last full-fledged budget on 1 February. If it wants to do something for Telangana, it is the most appropriate time as next year it would be only a vote-on-account of budget as elections would be held in the middle of the year,” he said.

He demanded that the Centre, in the budget, should keep all the promises made to the state in the AP State Reorganisation Act which included, among others, setting up a steel plant at Bayyaram, a railway coach factory at Kazipet, and creating industrial corridors.

Also Read: Modi is the most inefficient, incompetent PM India has seen: KTR

“We have been asking for funds for Kakatiya Mega Textile Park and Turmeric Board for Nizamabad. Whenever we raise the Hyderabad Pharma City project, the Centre clams up. It has not sanctioned an IIM and IISc for the state, which it has to. It has not even allotted one medical college, or one educational institution, or any new Navodaya school, which have to be set up in each district,” he said.

The BRS working president said that the Centre has not released even one paisa over and above what it has to sanction mandatorily in the form of central transfers to the state.

‘A burden on the people’

“The Modi government has been adopting a step-motherly attitude towards Telangana,” he stated and demanded that either the Kaleshwaram or Palamuru-Rangareddy Lift Irrigation Scheme be declared a national project.

తెలంగాణ మీద సవతి తల్లి ప్రేమ చూపిస్తున్న కేంద్రంలోని బీజేపీ ప్రభుత్వం : బీఆర్ఎస్ వర్కింగ్ ప్రెసిడెంట్, మంత్రి శ్రీ @KTRBRS. pic.twitter.com/VpXsQ2LRC9

— BRS Party (@BRSparty) January 28, 2023

The BRS leader noted that during the last eight years, the Centre has placed an unbearable burden on the people while helping its corporate friends generously.

“When Modi took over in 2014, the price of petrol was ₹70 per litre. At that time, the crude was USD 94 per barrel. Now, the crude is USD 90 but the price of petrol has gone up to ₹115 per litre,” he said.

He asserted that the Telangana government has not increased the tax on fuel as it remained the same even now.

Also Read: Former Odisha CM Giridhar Gamang and others join BRS

Where’s the money?

He said that in the guise of additional excise duty and cess on fuel, the Modi government has collected ₹30 lakh crore more from the people and that it was distributing it among its corporate friends.

He wanted to know from the BJP whether or not it was true that for every rupee the Centre collects from Telangana as taxes, it was returning only 46 paise as the Centre’s devolutions to the state.

So far, the Centre has collected ₹3.68 lakh crore from the state but has given back only ₹1.68 lakh crore.

The Centre has used the balance amount in states where it was in power, he charged.

“It is like robbing Peter to pay Paul,” he added.