The Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) supported the no confidence motion against Prime Minister Modi in Lok Sabha on August 9. Nama Nageswara Rao, who is the floor leader for BRS, supporting the motion moved by Congress MP Gaurav Gogoi, accused the government of having wronged Telangana over the last nine years and also demanded that the Union government take responsibility for the Manipur violence. Incidentally, on July 26, the BRS too had submitted a notice to move the no confidence motion but was accepted since the Congress had already submitted a notice a few minutes before that.
Nama Nageswara Rao in his speech highlighted that the union government has not contributed to Telangana’s growth despite having promised the same under the Andhra Pradesh Recognition Act (2014). “We were supposed to get a coach factory but it was canceled. Instead a coach factory was established in Maharashtra and Gujarat. We were promised educational institutions. We were supposed to get Indian Institute of Management, Tribal University, medical colleges and Navodaya Vidyalaya schools in every district. However, none of these promises have been kept by the union government in the last nine years,” he said.
He further added that despite receiving no help from the ruling BJP government, the state has registered success in several initiatives which he alleged were copied by the union government. “After KCR (K Chandrashekar Rao) came to power, we started the Bhagiratha mission to ensure that every house had filtered consumable water. Telangana has no water in the months of June and July, after extreme heat in summers but KCR ensured that water was provided. The union government copied and started a mission called Har Ghar Jal. You have copied our missions but continued to extend aid to other states, while you ignored Telangana,” he commented.
The BRS MP also accused the BJP government for fuel inflation, and added that PM Modi’s promises of creating two crore jobs per year have been ill kept.
The BRS has maintained that they will remain equidistant from both the BJP and Congress and they currently are not part of either of the alliances–NDA led by the BJP and the newly formed front of Opposition parties INDIA. While the BRS had supported the Modi government on important issues like the Abrogation of Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir, the party has opposed the Union government over the contentious Farm laws and more recently over the Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi(Amendment) Bill.
K Chandrashekhar Rao’s BRS, formerly known as Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS), has nine MPs in the Lok Sabha and seven MPs in the Rajya Sabha.