BRS hits back at Governor's R-Day speech, states 'need for President's intervention'

The ruling BRS has hit back at Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan, who in her Republic Day address on Thursday made several critical remarks about the K Chandrasekhar Rao-led administration in Telangana.

Reacting to Soundararajan's observations that a few in Telangana possessing farm houses and raising of few new buildings is not development, Kalvakuntla Kavitha, a BRS MLC, said that they too had demanded the Narendra Modi government to prioritize the country's infrastructure over the new Central Vista project taken up during the pandemic.

The governor was apparently pointing to chief minister KCR's private farmhouse near Gajwel and the grand Telangana secretariat complex nearing completion with an expenditure of over Rs 600 crore in Hyderabad.

“Choosing the country’s infrastructure over central vista during a pandemic is what we demanded. Choosing farmers, labourers, and unemployed youth over focusing on wealth generation for a few is exactly what we have been fighting for. Thank you for echoing the vision of CM KCR Garu,” said Kavitha, an ex-MP and daughter of KCR, in a tweet tagging the Governor's statements.

Talasani Srinivas, a senior minister in the KCR cabinet, too objected to the Governor's remarks, stating them as bringing disrepute to her office.

“When there is a Parliament building, why was a new one built? What is the need of a new bungalow for the PM?” Srinivas told reporters.

“How can a person sitting in the governor's chair make such remarks against the state government,” Srinivas, animal husbandry minister, questioned while stating the “need for the President of India's intervention.”

Interestingly, the Telangana BJP stated the new secretariat as an excessive expenditure when people in Telangana were in the grip of the Covid-19 pandemic in mid-2020.

BJP Telangana chief Bandi Sanjay had compared KCR to “Nero” and “Tughlaq”, saying “the over Rs 500 crore for the new secretariat could have been better utilized to reconstruct, expand the (dilapidated) Osmania General Hospital to save people’s lives.”

Amid the ongoing tussle between the Raj Bhavan and Pragathi Bhavan, and charges of the BRS ministers that the governor is operating like a BJP agent, Soundararajan said that “despite some not liking her she won't stop striving for the well-being of the state, its people.”

“I will move ahead with hard work, honesty and love for people, my strengths, to play a vital role in the state's development. My attachment with Telangana is not of three years. It comes from birth,” Soundararajan said in her address from the Raj Bhavan.