Telangana Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy accused leaders of the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) on Saturday of engaging in occult rituals aimed at undermining the Congress government. Reddy raised questions regarding the secrecy surrounding the BRS leaders’ visits to temples, suggesting a hidden agenda behind their actions.
Without naming BRS MLA T Harish Rao , Reddy alleged that a former minister had visited temples in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu to perform occult rituals, purportedly praying for drought, farmers’ distress and the downfall of the Congress government. Reddy also challenged BRS president K Chandrasekhar Rao, popularly known as KCR, to a debate on the issue in the Assembly. He alleged that beneficiaries had not consumed the coarse rice distributed under the previous BRS regime, claiming it was instead used as poultry feed and in beer and ethanol production.
The Congress government had transferred ₹ 36,000 crore to the accounts of 70 lakh farmers under the Rythu Bharosa investment support scheme, he said. The chief minister said the state government was distributing more than two lakh quintals of fine rice every month through Public Distribution System (PDS) shops to 3.48 crore people. On August 4, Telangana Congress president B Mahesh Kumar Goud had alleged that BRS MLA Harish Rao performed ‘kshudra puja’ (occult rituals) to prevent rainfall in the state in the hope of gaining political mileage from a drought.
Reddy said the Yellampalli project on the Godavari and the Krishna river had received adequate water despite the impact of El Niño, claiming this reflected the Congress government’s good intentions. Reddy said his government had built seven lakh houses for the poor in two years and reiterated his challenge that the Congress would seek votes in villages where ‘Indiramma’ houses had been built, while the BRS should seek votes in villages where it had built double-bedroom houses.
