And the TRS ministers and leaders were targeting the Congress to divert the people's attention from their failures, the party alleged.
Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) Treasurer Gudur Narayana Reddy strongly condemned Finance Minister T Harish Rao for his "highly objectionable" remarks against the Congress.
Reddy said that the Congress had been playing the role of a constructive opposition by raising genuine questions in the public interest. He claimed that it was only after Congress' objection to salary cuts for all employees that the TRS government had modified its order and exempted the staff of the health, police, sanitation, gram panchayat and some other departments from the salary cut. A cash incentive had also been announced only after the Congress leaders had made the demand.
However the TRS ministers and leaders had been targeting the Congress to divert the people's attention from their failures, Reddy alleged. "Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao and all his ministers have become masters in deceiving the common people with false promises and fake claims. And whenever they fail to answer the questions being raised by the people, they blame the Congress for weird reasons," he said.
He also said that Congress leaders were fully justified in saying that the TRS government did not extend the promised support to the poor people.
"Harish Rao himself admitted that the 12 kg free rice per person for white ration card holders had been distributed to only 87% of the intended beneficiaries. It clearly means that more than 10 lakh BPL families are yet to get the rice, which was promised to them on March 22. Similarly, Rs 1,500 per family was transferred to the beneficiaries' accounts only on April 14. Will KCR or Harish Rao explain how nearly 87 lakh BPL families would have managed for the last 24 days without food, work or money?" he asked.
And instead of apologising to the poor people for the delay, the TRS leaders were trying to divert their attention by giving political statements, Reddy said.
He also pointed out that nothing had been given or even promised to the people not having white ration cards - including the middle class, employees of private firms or workers of unorganised sectors.
The Congress leader also disputed the Finance Minister's claim of the state government spending Rs 3,147 crore to combat the coronavirus, and asked him to place the entire break-up of the expenditure in the public domain.
"The TRS government has neglected the health sector ever since it came to power. The expenditure on health was reduced every year, and only Rs 6,187 crore were allocated in a budget of Rs 1,82,914 crore for the year 2020-21, which comes to just about 3.38% of total expenditure. Telangana was always in the bottom three of 29 states in spending on public health. The situation would have been different now had the TRS government made some investments on health infrastructure in the last six-and-a-half years," he said.
He also pointed out that all hospitals where the coronavirus patients were being treated now had been established by the previous Congress regimes. The staff and infrastructure in those hospitals had also been deployed during the Congress governments. "The TRS government did not construct a single hospital in the last six years," he said, despite in its manifesto for the 2014 elections promising to establish a super-speciality hospital in each district headquarter.
Reddy alleged that Harish Rao had no clue about the impact of the coronavirus and the lockdown on Telangana's economy. "Is it not strange that Finance Minister Harish Rao and Home Minister Mahmood Ali were not present in a single review meeting held by the Chief Minister on the coronavirus and the lockdown situation although the issue is directly related to their departments? Health Minister Etala Rajender too is completely clueless, and even unaware of the actual number of cases. Three different figures were circulated on Monday. While a press release from the CMO said that there were 32 new cases, the union health ministry had put the figure at 58 till 5 pm. But the medical bulletin has put the figure at 61. These contradictions in numbers clearly show that the TRS government is mishandling the situation," he said.
"KCR and his ministers are good only at abusing the opposition parties, cursing the media and cheating the common people. They seem to place no value on human lives, the needs of the poor and the hungry or the self-respect of the common people. It is highly unfortunate that Telangana is having a Home Minister who can't enter the CMO's gate without permission, a Finance Minister who portrays failures as achievements, a Health Minister who has no idea or control over his department, and a Chief Minister who is not concerned about the sufferings of crores of people," he said.