Objecting to Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s statement calling Telangana a ‘debt-ridden state’, Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) leader KT Rama Rao wrote an open letter to her defending his party’s ten years of governance.
KTR said that while the BRS government created assets with the debts it incurred since coming to power in the state in 2014, in the same period, the Union government led by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) “wrecked the country with insurmountable debt”.
On February 13, Nirmala Sitharaman responded to Congress MP Renuka Chowdhury in the Rajya Sabha after she questioned her on what the Union government had given to Telangana. The Union Finance Minister claimed that at the time of bifurcation, Telangana had a revenue surplus. “Today, I am sorry to say that it is a debt-ridden state,” she said.
KTR has insisted in his open letter that since 2014, until Congress wrested power from BRS in 2023, the state has had a revenue surplus budget. He said it was unfair of the Union Finance Minister to portray the state’s borrowings within the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management Act as misguided.
KTR alleged that the sole purpose of the Union government’s debts was to “waive lakhs of crores of loans of corporate powers.”
“We solved decades of hardships of the people of Telangana with the debts we have incurred. We changed the direction of Telangana's growth and created inexhaustible assets for the state. Your government wrecked the country with insurmountable debt and you are calling us debt-ridden?” KTR said in his open letter.
“The people of Telangana will never forgive the BJP for the immense injustice you meted out to us in every single budget, “ he said.
He said that the most crucial issue is what the loans were spent on, rather than the volume of debt. He claimed that the BRS government built ambitious projects to tackle the state’s drinking water and irrigation problems, and to create infrastructure, with the loans it took.
KTR said he was furious with the BJP for being biased against Telangana in both the Union Budget and Railway allocations.
KTR also lashed out at Union Minister Piyush Goyal, saying it was cruel of him to speak in a way that hurts Telangana's self-respect for seeking its fair share of funds from the Union government and its bifurcation rights.
Piyush Goyal, The Union Minister for Commerce, recently said at a public event that some states like Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, and Telangana ask for as much tax devolutions as their tax contributions, calling it “chhoti soch” (petty thinking).
KTR said that it was extremely unfortunate that the National Turmeric Board in Telangana did not receive allocations in the Union budget. He alleged that the BJP was neglecting Telangana despite having eight MPs from the state.
