Congress has so far implemented four of the six promises it made in Telangana in the run-up to last year's Assembly elections.
BRS leader T Harish Rao with others from the party in Hyderabad on Friday. 26 April, 2024. (Supplied)
BRS leader and former Telangana health minister T Harish Rao on Friday, 26 April, threw an open challenge to Congress and put his Assembly membership on the line.
He told reporters he would resign as an MLA if the Congress government in the state fulfilled all six of the party’s pre-poll guarantees and also enacted its promised farm loan waiver by 15 August.
Speaking to journalists at the Gun Park memorial in Hyderabad, he also brandished his resignation letter.
This appeared to be a move to show that he was not throwing an empty challenge but was ready to resign in all earnestness.
In a move challenging CM @revanth_anumula, @BRSparty MLA @BRSHarish presented his resignation letter to journalists gathered at Gun Park on April 26.
His action was a direct challenge to the government, demanding the prompt implementation of crop loan waivers and the six… pic.twitter.com/nQCWpvdQov
— South First (@TheSouthfirst) April 26, 2024
Rao told reporters on Friday that the significance of his MLA position paled compared to the urgent need to fulfil the promises made to the people.
He urged Telangana Chief Minister Revanth Reddy to demonstrate a similar commitment by submitting his resignation letter if he chose not to visit the martyrs’ memorial.
Responding to Rao’s gesture, Revanth Reddy highlighted that the MLA had not adhered to the prescribed format for resignation letters issued by the Speaker.
Speaking at a meeting of Congress’ social media team, he assured Rao that crop loans for farmers would indeed be waived by 15 August — Independence Day.
He then urged the BRS leader to prepare a resignation letter in the correct format.
In the run-up to the Telangana Assembly elections last year, Congress looked to replicate its success from May’s Karnataka Assembly polls, and hence announced six guarantees — one more than in the neighbouring state.
Announced in September last year, each scheme had multiple promises tailormade to target specific sections of society.
They were:
Congress credited its victory in the Telangana Assembly elections to these guarantees, which it said would be implemented post-haste.
However, the new Congress government implemented only three of these guarantees within its first 100 days in power.
It began gung-ho. The Congress government kickstarted two guarantees — free bus travel for women (the first component of the Mahalakshmi scheme) and enhancement of coverage under Aarogyasri from ₹5 lakh to ₹10 lakh — within the first two days of taking over the reins in the state on 9 December.
It inaugurated two more guarantees on 27 February. The first was LPG cylinders at ₹500 — the other part of the Mahalakshmi scheme.
The second was the bestowal of free power up to 200 units — called the Gruha Jyothi scheme — for families possessing white ration cards.
Revanth Reddy, who is also the Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) chief, launched in mid-March the Indiramma housing scheme for economically weaker sections of society.
At the inauguration, he said 4.5 lakh houses had been sanctioned with an outlay of ₹22,500 crore for the scheme’s beneficiaries. That was
Congress had also promised to waive all farm loans in the state up to ₹2 lakh soon after the new government assumed office.
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