Siddipet legislator T Harish Rao on Saturday, July 27, issued an open challenge to Telangana Deputy Chief Minister and Finance Minister Bhatti Vikramarka, asking him if he is up to get some public opinion on the power disruptions in the state. “[Speaker] please give a five-minute tea break. Bhatti Vikramarka and I will go to Gun Park outside the Assembly. Let us ask the people there if the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) government provided better power or if the situation was better now under the Congress. The people will decide and end this debate,” the former Ministersaid while speaking in the Assembly.
Taking a dig at the Congress government, Harish Rao said that previously, whenever Ministers or the Chief Minister were to attend a meeting, the police would be on standby for protection. “But under the present government, along with the police, the energy department officials are also kept on standby to avert any power crisis at the meeting,” he said.
Harish Rao credited the previous BRS government for resolving the power crisis in the state within two years after coming to power in the state in 2014. He said that under the BRS government, the power generation capacity was increased from 7,770 megawatts to 19,843 megawatts within a decade. “Under your ‘Indiramma’ governance, the average power consumption is 1,196 units. Whereas the average power consumption under the BRS government was 2,348 units.”
Further criticising the Congress government’s budget, the Siddipet legislator said that Finance Minister Bhatti Vikramarka focussed more on the humiliation of the Opposition as opposed to the formulation of the policy. “For how long will they continue to survive by blaming us? It has been eight months now, and the governance seems to be running without a vision or direction.”
Harish Rao said that the government was yet to give a clear brief of any of their policies to the public. He said that the Finance Minister made a self-contradictory statement by saying that the BRS government failed in all sectors in the last 10 years while also boasting that the average revenue of the state was Rs 3,47,229. “Was this increase in average due to our 10-year governance or your eight-month governance?” he asked.
The former minister also said that the present government has ruined nightlife in Hyderabad by forcing commercial establishments and eateries to shut early by 10 pm.
After a series of crime incidents in Hyderabad, the police had enforced ‘operation chabutra’ to prevent youngsters from gathering on the roads after 11 pm. There have also been instances of police assaulting teenagers who were caught roaming on the roads in the Old City.