Exposing the growing discontent between the Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan and the ruling party, the TRS MLA Saidi Reddy on Wednesday accused her of “acting as a BJP President”. The Huzurnagar MLA’s comments come in response to her criticism of the TRS government’s handling of the COVID-19 crisis.
Saidi Reddy tweeted, “Sorry to hear that Governor of Telangana acting as BJP President. Our beloved CM is rolemodel for most of the state and central schemes and praised by central ministers. Compare to other states we are conducting Covid tests village level (sic).”
However, after facing flak, he deleted the tweet hours later without offering an apology.
In a recent interview to India Today, Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan expressed dissatisfaction with the Telangana government’s poor rate of testing and its reluctance to engage private hospitals for testing initially.
She was quoted as saying, “The PM had mentioned 80 per cent of COVID-19 cases were reported from southern states. And one of the major contributors is Telangana. We started with 50 cases per day and now we have over 2,500 cases per day. Right from the start Telangana had permission from ICMR to test at private hospitals. Yet the government was hesitant to allot it. Eventually, only three hospitals were testing and that was not sufficient. Many people were turned away. No one must be denied a test. It is their basic right. That was the major problem people of Telangana faced despite repeated requests for district-wise testing and mobile testing units.”
The Governor also drew attention to the state’s poor medical infrastructure and said that the state needs at least 20,000 nurses and more number of beds to handle the crisis.
Tamilisai, who is a doctor herself, had alleged that Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao did not take her suggestions to handle the crisis in the right spirit, and did not return the courtesy of responding to her. “I had written 6-7 letters to the Chief Minister. My views should have been considered as sensible and not sensational,” she had said.
Another instance of the straining relationship between the Governor and the government is the Chief Secretary Somesh Kumar decision to skip the meeting with Tamilisai at the Raj Bhavan earlier in June. The meeting was rescheduled for the next day.
Reacting to the TRS’s offensive position, former BJP state president, Dr Laxman said, “The BJP welcomes the Governor’s statement exposing the gross failure of the TRS government. Rather than reflecting on the criticism constructively and taking necessary steps, the Chief Minister, through his lackeys politically attacking the Governor, is a disgrace in the democracy.”
Laxman pointed out the Telangana High Court had pulled up the government several times for being non-transparent and to improve the testing capacity. “What the High Court had said several times, was reiterated by the Governor as well, but instead of taking the comments in the right spirit, the counter attack on the Governor is reprehensible.”
Laxman demanded that Chief Minister KCR should direct the MLA to apologize for the incident.
The state BJP also issued a statement calling Saidi Reddy’s comments “irresponsible and disrespectful to the constitutional head of the state and are lowering dignity of the office of the State Governor.”
"MLA Saidi Reddy should be ashamed of his statement trying to attribute political affiliation to the State Governor. BJP demands a written public apology from MLA Saidi Reddy to the State Governor withdrawing his irresponsible statement," said BJP state president Krishna Saagar Rao.
Meanwhile, the Congress party said that the comments made by the Governor was a ‘damning indictment’ of the KCR-led government’s failure. “The @DrTamilisaiGuv's statement is a damning indictment of KCR govt's mishandling of #COVID19 in TS. Even yesterday, total tests in TS were just 19,579 when smaller states are testing in lakhs per day. The image of state & Hyderabad has taken a severe beating. Shame on KCR govt!” (sic) Uttam Kumar Reddy, president of Telangana Congress tweeted.
The @DrTamilisaiGuv's statement is a damning indictment of KCR govt's mishandling of #COVID19 in TS. Even yesterday, total tests in TS were just 19,579 when smaller states are testing in lakhs per day. The image of state & Hyderabad has taken a severe beating. Shame on KCR govt! https://t.co/ctNnLfXeCr
— Uttam Kumar Reddy (@UttamTPCC) August 19, 2020
The total number of COVID-19 cases in the state reached close to lakh as of Wednesday. On Wednesday 1724 persons tested positive for novel coronavirus, taking the total to 97,424; and 10 persons succumbed to the disease. The state had tested a total of 8,21,311 samples. The testing capacity of the state per 1 million population remains at 22,122 as per the medical bulletin.
