Final lap in Munugode: TRS releases charge sheet against BJP, highlights fluorosis menace

The charge sheet, while listing out the BJP’s failures, highlighted the fluorosis menace, rampant in Munugode.

Fluorosis affects the bones and joints, often leaving the patient’s body misshaped for life. According to reports, about 7,500 people in Munugode are affected by the ailment, caused by over-exposure to fluoride.

Though the Niti Aayog had recommended an allocation of ₹19,000 crore for Mission Bhagiratha, a drinking water project covering all villages in Telangana, the prime minister has not done anything to implement it.

GST on handloom products

The charge sheet also raised the issue of imposition of five percent GST on handloom products, which he termed a death warrant to the weavers. “There is a conspiracy to further hike the GST to 12 percent”, he said.

Telangana IT Minister KT Rama Rao. (Supplied)

“It is deplorable that the Centre ordered the national tricolour from a Chinese company for Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav, rather than buying from the native handloom weavers,” he said, adding that BJP was responsible for disbanding several institutions like All India Handloom Board, created for the welfare of the weavers.

Munugode, which goes to poll on Thursday, 3 November, has a significant population of weavers.

Attempts to fix motors to the farmers’ borewell pumps, delay in deciding Telangana’s share of Krishna river waters, increasing the price of petroleum products, and the Centre’s inaction in creating a quota for tribespeople in education and employment, also figured in the charge sheet.

Rama Rao viewed the Centre’s attempt to fix electricity meters to the agriculture pump sets as a prelude to force the state to do away with the free power supply scheme. “It will hurt the interests of 30 lakh farmers”, he said.

The TRS also accused the BJP of conspiring to scrap welfare measures by calling them freebies and terming the beneficiaries, free-loaders.

He accused the Centre of not initiating any measures to ensure Telangana got its share of 575 tmcft (thousand million cubic feet) of Krishna water. “This is injustice to the farmers of Nalgonda and Palamur districts”, he added.

The Centre’s reluctance in conducting the backward-classes census, too, came under TRS fire.

Referring to the promises made in the State Reorganisation Act, Rama Rao said that the Modi dispensation had let down the state by shifting the coach factory, which was to be set up in Kazipet, to Gujarat.

KTR mum on Cash for MLAs row

Meanwhile, the TRS working president urged the Vedic scholars at Yadadri Temple to conduct samprokshanam to the idol of Lord Narasimha Swamy.

He made the suggestion a day after the BJP state president Bandi Sanjay Kumar reportedly touched the idol to swear by the deity that his party had no role in the Cash for MLAs case.

Responding to a question at a news conference, the minister said: “Bandi Sanjay, who had carried the footwear of BJP national leaders, touched them. It is sacrilege and rituals should be held to cleanse the idol and the premises.”

He said he did not trust the BJP leaders even when they take a vow in the name of Lord Narasimha Swamy.

“They have a record of welcoming rapists with garlands when they are released from prison”, the TRS leader said, in an apparent reference to the Bilkis Bano case.

“If taking a vow in the name of God is proof that one is not guilty, why should there be courts and law,” he asked.

The minister declined to comment on the Cash for MLAs case, saying it would influence the investigation.

“As a responsible minister, I should not make comments lest it should have an effect on the investigation,” he said, and pointed out that the chief minister would speak on the case at an appropriate time.