The Telangana Assembly's Budget session meets have been witnessing some rather
heated discussions since they began earlier this month. Today, another bitter exchange left the Assembly members stunned when TRS MLA Rekha Naik and Congress MLA Seethakka disagreed on the issue of development of tribal villages in the state.
When the Congress MLA raised questions about the steps taken by the ruling party for the development of the tribal communities, Naik responded sharply, and said, "Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao has been developing the tribal villages in Telangana even since he assumed office during his first term in 2014. Under his guidance, our government has transformed the thandas into village panchayats."
In an unusual intervention, Speaker Pocharam Srinivas Reddy told the TRS MLA that she could choose to speak in her mother tongue, the Lambada dialect, instead of in Telugu. She then continued her tirade in her mother tongue, and added, "The TRS regime has successfully implemented programs that have made a horde of basic amenities available to the previously-ignored tribal pockets of the state. The waters of Mission Bhagiratha have also reached remote corners. Where successive governments of undivided Andhra Pradesh ignored the thandas and large swathes of tribal areas, our government has continuously worked to strengthen the ST communities in the state."
Rekha even claimed that Seethakka had raised questions about the development without knowing that areas like Bapunagar, Indravelli and Utnoor had been transformed by the TRS regime, and asserted, "We are doing our best to support the tribals by pumping funds into programs for their welfare. They now have unbridled access to potable water and electricity, for instance. I would urge the Opposition not to point fingers without knowing the truth."