Telangana IT and Industries Minister K T Rama Rao today came down heavily on the state BJP chief Bandi Sanjay Kumar, and alleged that the latter was indulging in "petty politics" over the issue of the Information Technology Investment Region (ITIR) project.
He said that the BJP was "dashing off letters" regarding the stagnation of the ITIR project after "miserably failing" to sanction the same.
Rao's comments came after Kumar's decision to take up the ITIR issue with Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao
in a letter, in which the BJP leader reportedly alleged that the TRS government and the party's leaders were trying to hide their own "mistakes" by "writing letters to the Centre every other day" on the project.
Condemning the letter, KTR alleged, "Bandi Sanjay's letter to the CM on the ITIR issue is full of lies. This is Bandi Sanjay's second letter to the state government. I would urge him to address these letters of his to the union government instead of to us. The letters are just another instance of the leader's attempts to mislead the people of the state. It is in the nature of the BJP to tell even the most outrageous lies to secure political gains."
Making clear the fact that the state government had been trying to get the coveted project sanctioned ever since Telangana was formed, he asked the BJP chief to write to Union Minister of Electronics and Information Technology Ravi Shankar Prasad, who recently announced that the Centre had shelved the ITIR project, to find out who caused the failure of the project - the BJP or the TRS.
"The CM had written a letter on the project's clearance to Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his first month in office. We had even submitted a detailed memorandum on it in September, 2014. So, it is clearly the BJP-led Centre that is responsible for the non-completion of the ITIR," the TRS leader claimed.
He demanded that the BJP offer the people of Telangana an apology for its "failure" to get the Centre's approval for the ITIR, a project which would have generated "millions of jobs".
While KTR lashed out at the saffron party, the ruling party itself was at the receiving end of some acerbic criticism. Congress MP Komatireddy Venkat Reddy hit out at the TRS government and at the CM for "cheating" Telangana.
"KCR is the biggest cheat in the entire country. He has done all that he can to insult and disempower the government employees and unemployed youth of the state. All the CM is interested in is ensuring the welfare of his son, KTR, who he will surely make the next CM of the state. In fact, that seems to be all that KCR is worried about. The low fitment given to the employees, and the state government's disinterest in introducing an unemployment dole are all proofs of this attitude," the MP charged.
"Now that the ruling party has realised that the people will no longer support its evil ways, it is busy buying votes for the upcoming MLC elections in the two graduate constituencies. The only way to punish the party is to teach it a befitting lesson by ensuring that it faces a resounding defeat in the elections," he added.