Published Oct 18, 2026 | 7:45 PM ⚊ Updated Oct 18, 2026 | 7:45 PM
The BRS alleges the piece was meant to tarnish the image of its president, KCR.
Synopsis: A Velugu report published on 17 October alleged that public money funded water and drip irrigation facilities at KCR’s Erravalli farmhouse. BRS calls the story baseless and has threatened defamation proceedings if the paper does not retract it and apologise.
The Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) on Sunday, 18 October, issued a legal notice to the management and the editor of vernacular newspaper Velugu, demanding that they withdraw a report on former Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao which alleged that water from Kondapochamma Sagar is being routed to his farmhouse at Erravalli, and demanded an unconditional apology.
The notices, issued by BRS general secretary and legal cell in-charge Soma Bharat Kumar, give the paper 24 hours from receipt to withdraw the 17 October story, produce evidence for its claims and apologise to KCR and the party without conditions. It also demanded that the apology be published prominently on the front page and shared on the paper’s digital platforms and official social media accounts.
The BRS alleges the piece was meant to tarnish the image of its president, KCR, and cast doubt on the irrigation projects built during the party’s decade in power.
The notice comes amid a political row over the Erravalli farmhouse in Siddipet district, after Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy ordered an inquiry into alleged irregularities involving it and a wider scrutiny of assets held by the BRS chief’s extended family.
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The report was published as an ‘exclusive’ with the headline ‘Kondapochamma water diverted to KCR farmhouse’. A video story aired parallelly on the V6 News channel, titled ‘Konda Pochamma Sagar Project Water Reaches KCR’s Erravalli Farmhouse’. Both entities are owned by VIL Media Private Limited, whose managing director is Vaishnavi Gaddam.
Vaishnavi is the daughter of Gaddam Vivek Venkataswamy, Minister for Labour, Employment Training & Factories, Mines & Geology in Telangana’s Congress government. Vivek’s other daughter, Vritika, is also listed as a director of the parent organisation.
The ground report alleges that a pond, canals, pumps, and pipelines supply KCR’s Erravalli farmhouse with water from Kondapochamma Sagar, the 15-tmcft Kaleshwaram reservoir built between 2018 and 2020, about 5 km away. At its centre is Panduranga Cheruvu, a 58-acre pond opposite the farmhouse.
Citing Google Earth imagery, the news report says no such water body existed before 2016, and quotes locals as saying it was dug while the reservoir was being built. It says a diversion off the Jagdevpur canal fills the pond, while motors and pipes on the far bank lift water through underground lines into the farmhouse.
Locals quoted in the report claimed channels from another diversion canal fill a three-acre well behind the farmhouse, and that smaller diversions run along other sides of the property. The report says KCR’s family and relatives largely own the land around the farmhouse.
The report cites three government orders from 2016 and 2017 for fully subsidised drip irrigation over 3,000 acres in designated model villages of Erravalli and Narsannapet. The sanction was later raised from ₹42.54 crore to ₹49.89 crore, and a private firm, Netafim, was brought in without any mention of a tender, it says.
The piece contrasts water supply to the farmhouse with the state’s El Niño drought conditions. It alleges that the BRS government spent ₹1.5 lakh crore on irrigation over a decade without bringing water to a single new acre, and quotes farmers saying their fields are parched while the farmhouse stays green.
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BRS’s legal team has asked Velugu to explain the basis of the report, including whether the paper examined irrigation department records, verified the actual routes of the canals and sought responses from the officials concerned. It said that publishing sensational allegations without addressing these questions violates journalistic standards.
The party said it respected press freedom and supported the right to question governments and politicians, but that freedom came with responsibility, and allegations that damage a person’s reputation must rest on evidence.
The BRS also warned that the public was watching attempts to gain political mileage by using KCR’s name and discrediting irrigation projects taken up by the previous government, and said it would not stay silent if a newspaper became a vehicle for political propaganda in the name of press freedom. If Velugu does not respond in time, the legal cell said action under applicable laws, including defamation, would follow.
The wealth and assets of KCR and his extended family have been under public scrutiny since September, when Revanth Reddy said during a discussion on prohibited lands in the State Assembly that KCR and his extended family held nearly 440 acres of assigned land across nine districts.
He also announced that a panel would investigate alleged irregularities.
Reddy also alleged that around 388 acres of government land lay within the Erravalli farmhouse’s roughly 700-acre spread, and ordered an inquiry into the property. In October, the government said that of the 388 acres on record, officials could trace only 343 and ordered notices to KCR and his family to produce records to locate the ‘missing’ 45 acres.
The claims about Kondapochamma water being diverted to the farmhouse were also first made by Revanth and other Congress leaders before Velugu published its controversial piece. The Chief Minister dared the BRS leaders if they would get behind a fact-finding committee probing the alleged link.
(Edited by Dese Gowda)
