BRS used extending favours as a weapon, unlike BJP, which also had the additional tool of using probe agencies to browbeat corporates.
BRS chief K Chandrashekar Rao at the Telangana Bhavan in Hyderabad on Tuesday, 6 February, 2024. (Supplied)
The Bharatiya Rashtra Samithi (BRS) government of K Chandrashekar Rao appears to have been as brazen as the BJP when receiving money from corporates through electoral bonds.
Awarding contracts, granting concessions or offering quick clearances and then accepting bonds as a quid pro quo is a pattern that cannot miss one’s attention as we glean the data published by the Election Commission.
Unlike the BJP, which had two weapons – using investigating agencies to browbeat corporates into submission or extend favours, the BRS utilized only the second option because it could not wield the stick the same way as the party ruling at the Centre.
An analysis of the bond data revealed two such glaring cases. First, Mumbai-based IRB MP Expressway Pvt Ltd. On 1 April 2023, the company announced that it had bagged the 158 km Hyderabad Outer Ring Road (ORR) contract on a toll-operate-transfer basis for 30 years.
The BRS government gave away the contract for ₹7,380 crore, and IRB started tolling in August 2023.
Between the time it bagged the contract and commenced tolling, IRB bought 25 bonds worth ₹1 crore each (serial numbers 14956, 966/950/962/974/978…………) on 4 July. The BRS encashed all the bonds on 13 July.
The award of the project soon became controversial, with the present Chief Minister of Telangana and then Congress president A Revanth Reddy alleging a massive scandal.
Questioning the tendering process the BRS government adopted, Revanth claimed that the government should have generated at least ₹18,000 crore through a toll project but had instead slashed the amount by more than half to benefit the contractor.
In February this year, Revanth, who had become chief minister in the meantime, ordered a comprehensive inquiry into the project’s award.
Officials who attended the review meeting he chaired pointed out that the toll generated on ORR currently stands at ₹600 crore, which translates to ₹18,000 crore at current value for a 30-year period.
The bond data shows that the relations between BRS and Kerala-based Kitex Group were no different. In 2023, the Group owned by Sabu Jacob purchased bonds to benefit only BRS, then in power in Telangana.
The bond details are:
*Kitex Childrenswear Limited bought ₹5 crore bonds on 5 July 2023
*Kitex Garments Limited bought ₹10 crore bonds on 5 July 2023
*Kitex Childrenwear Limited bought ₹10 crore bonds on 12 October 2023.
In 2021, Kitex, claiming harassment from Kerala government officials, announced it was shifting an investment project worth ₹3,500 crore to Telangana’s Warangal and Rangareddy districts.
The BRS government allotted Kitex 200 acres of land in Warangal.
The land was acquired from local farmers who protested that instead of the market rate of ₹50 lakh per acre, they were paid only ₹10 lakh per acre as compensation.
Work began on the two factories in mid-2023. Incidentally, the bonds were purchased and redeemed around the same time. The Assembly elections were held that November-end.
Apr 25, 2024
Apr 25, 2024
Apr 25, 2024
Apr 24, 2024
Apr 24, 2024
Apr 24, 2024
