Congress leader and former Minister Nagam Janardhan Reddy today slammed Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao for neglecting the state's ongoing water row with the Andhra Pradesh government.
Talking to the media, Reddy alleged that the KCR government had failed to move the Supreme Court to prevent the Jagan government from constructing the Rayalaseema Lift Irrigation Project (LIP) being built in Kurnool district's Sangameshwara, and that the failure evidenced the Telangana government's negligent attitude towards resolving the water dispute between the two states.
"Why is the CM not moving the apex court of India against the AP government's Rayalaseema LIP? Is he no longer bothered about protecting our interests? If this is not the case and the KCR government really does want to protect our river waters, it should approach the Supreme Court at the earliest. The government should not be a mute spectator while AP loots our river waters," he said.
(The project has been attacked by Telangana's leaders before as well. While the AP government maintains that the project is absolutely necessary to provide water to drought-prone Rayalseema, the leaders in Telangana claim that the Jagan regime is using the project to "steal" Telangana's waters. Some months ago, the BJP leaders in the state had also raised a hue and cry against the proposed lift irrigation scheme, claiming that it violated the provisions of the AP Reorganisation Act of 2014 by putting Telangana's interests in jeopardy.)
The former minister also attacked the CM for indulging in "corruption and irregularities" using the state's many irrigation projects.
Singling out the Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Scheme (KLIS), he alleged that "massive corruption" had plagued the project, and that he had accessed information on the matter using RTI provisions to prove this.
Last month too, the Congress leader had assailed the government for its alleged
corruption in the construction of the KLIS.