Congress Urges PM To Keep Off Mission Bhagiratha

Alleging that the TRS government had merely changed the name of the Moulana Abul Kalam Azad Sujala Sravanthi scheme to Mission Bhagiratha and was indulging in a falsehood campaign in this regard, the Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee asked the Prime Minister to refrain from inaugurating the Mission Bhagiratha project, and participate in other programs.

The body was speaking in the context of Prime Minister Narendra Modi visiting Telangana on August 7 to inaugurate several developmental schemes, including Mission Bhagiratha at Komatibanda village in the Gajwel constituency in the Medak district.

Speaking to the media at Gandhi Bhavan on Thursday along with Telangana Congress leaders Mohammed Ali Shabbir, T Jagga Reddy, M Konda Reddy, Mallu Ravi, Arepally Mohan and Konagala Mahesh, TPCC president Uttam Kumar Reddy said that the TRS government had just changed the name of the Moulana Abul Kalam Azad Sujala Sravanthi scheme, which was launched in December 2008 to bring 30 TMCFT of water to Hyderabad in three phases from the Godavari river, into Mission Bhagiratha, and diverted the Moulana Abul Kalam Azad scheme water to Gajwel.

"It is not correct for the TRS government to make the Prime Minister inaugurate a scheme which is just a rehash of an old scheme," he said.

He also said that

Stating that the Congress was not against providing water to the Gajwel constituency, Reddy said that the TRS government should have brought drinking waters to households via a different project, and not appropriated the Moulana Abul Kalam Azad Sujala Sravanthi Scheme

Shabbir Ali alleged that the TRS government had done many other similar things - it had changed the name of the Pranahitha-Chevella project, which was named after Dr B R Ambedkar, to Kaleswaram Project, for instance. And IT minister K T Rama Rao had during the GHMC election campaigning taken credit for and inaugurated the Godavari water to Hyderabad scheme, something that had been initiated by the Congress. He charged the Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao with being an expert in speaking lies.

Welcoming the Prime Minister's first visit to Telangana, Reddy urged the former to make a statement on assurances given to the State in the A P Re-organization Act — a Railway Coach Factory at Kazipet, a dedicated high court, a steel factory and horticulture and tribal universities.