KTR said the party did not mind adopting any good practice prevalent in other parties as there was nothing wrong in adopting anything good.
Published Aug 16, 2024 | 6:21 PM ⚊ Updated Aug 16, 2024 | 6:21 PM
BRS leader KT Rama Rao. (X)
The BRS in Telangana is contemplating revamping its structure. As part of it, a BRS team led by working president and former minister KT Rama Rao (KTR) will tour various states in the country and study how the regional parties are positioned there as either ruling parties or working in the Opposition space.
Replying to a question at a news conference at Telangana Bhavan in Hyderabad on Friday, 16 August, KTR said the party was even ready to take lessons from TDP and YSRCP in Andhra Pradesh.
“In September, we intend to visit different states and study how regional parties like the DMK and TMC are structured and are operating. There is nothing wrong with learning from others. We do not mind taking a leaf out of even the TDP which is in power in AP and YSRCP which is in Opposition,” Rama Rao.
KTR said that the TDP has been around for 40 years and the YSRCP about 15 years.
“We have been operating for the last about 24 years in Telangana. We adopt, learn, unlearn and make a fresh beginning. We may go in for constitution of new committees besides the existing ones and fill gaps in the party’s structure that we may have overlooked,” he said, stating that the BRS team may not visit Andhra Pradesh to study the structure of the TDP as it is operating here (Hyderabad) also.
He said the party did not mind adopting any good practice prevalent in other parties as there was nothing wrong in adopting anything good.
When asked whether the BRS would study how the TDP functions which has been its bitter rival during the Telangana movement days, the BRS leader said that it was necessary to understand the regional parties closely because each one is different from others in structure and functioning.
Describing the ₹2 lakh crop loan waiver as a cruel joke perpetrated on farmers, the BRS working president said that he was ready to quit the membership of the Assembly and retire from politics for good if chief minister A Revanth Reddy could make the farmers in any village of his choice say that all their loans had been waived.
“I am ready to visit any village, including any in the chief minister’s home constituency of Kodangal in Mahabubnagar district and sit with him. If farmers say they all of them received loan waiver benefit, I will quit politics,” he said.
He added that the government had excluded, employees, pensioners, and those who were paying Income Tax and those who did not possess ration cards.
The former minister questioned how the ₹2 lakh crop loan waiver came down to ₹17,934 crore when the initial estimate worked out to ₹40,000 crore.
He said it proved that the government had eliminated several eligible farmers from the ambit of loan waiver.
The BRS leader said that his party would wash the Congress’ dirty linen in the public on how Revanth Reddy had taken the farmers for a ride on crop loan waiver by excluding more than half of the farmers from the loan waiver purview.
“If Revanth Reddy goes into the midst of the farmers without security, they would teach him a lesson for the fraud that he had pulled off on them,” KTR said.
KTR said that Revanth Reddy, not keeping quiet about cheating farmers, was on the contrary shouting at the top of his voice, using expletives against the BRS leaders, mainly former finance minister T Harish Rao that he should resign since he had implemented loan waiver.
“Loan waiver has become the biggest joke of the decade,” the BRS leader said and described it as the biggest fraud pulled off in any state on farmers since Independence and pointed out that the police should register cheating cases against the chief minister.
Ahead of the Assembly elections, Revanth Reddy had said the Congress would win the election and that he would waive crop loans up to ₹2 lakh on 9 December at one stroke.
“At that time, it was estimated that the loan waiver would work out to ₹40,000 crore. Revanth Reddy said that if the government remained frugal for one year, paying ₹40,000 crore to farmers would not be very difficult and yet he could not do it,” KTR said.
“Later the total burden was brought down to ₹35,000 crore, then to ₹30,000 and finally to ₹17,934 crore, which is about the same amount the BRS had spent on waiver of crop loans up to ₹1 lakh for 35,000 farmers. This shows the kind of fraud that the Congress government had committed in the state in the name of loan waiver,” he said.
The former IT minister said that the chief minister’s body language and the way he was shouting at the top of his voice while addressing a meeting in Wyra in Khammam district to celebrate the occasion of loan waiver, made one wonder if he had lost his mental balance.
He seemed to be in a state of frustration as his unstated objective in the US tour seemed to have not been fulfilled except for signing an MoU with his brother’s company.
KTR, however, did not say what Revanth Reddy’s unstated business in the US was. He took a potshot at the chief minister for being in Delhi even on Friday, immediately after returning to Hyderabad from the US.
“It is his 19th visit to Delhi in his eight-month rule. KCR did not visit Delhi that many number of times in 10 years when he was the chief minister,” KTR said.
(Edited by Muhammed Fazil)
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