Hyderabad: Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) senior leader Harish Rao disagreed with Union Coal and Mines Minister G Kishan Reddy‘s statement on the merger of seven mandals in Telangana with Andhra Pradesh.
Reddy, in the Rajya Sabha on Thursday, April 2, said the merger was a part of the AP Reorganisation Act of 2014, which Rao called “false, a distortion of history, and an insult to the self-respect of Telangana.”
“It was the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government that brought an amendment to the AP Reorganisation Act. K Chandrasekhar Rao (KCR) had openly opposed the move and even called for a Telangana bandh as a mark of protest,” the Siddipet MLA said.
“Kishan Reddy cannot escape responsibility for that betrayal,” he added.
He also said that the Union Minister’s comments on the Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Project were “false propaganda engineering by Telangana Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy.”
Reminding Reddy that several leaders and institutions, including senior figures from the Centre, had praised the Kaleshwaram project, Rao cited the Economic Survey of India, saying under BRS’s decade-long governance, Telangana’s cultivated area increased from 1.31 crore acres to 2.2 crore acres, attributing the growth to the irrigation project and Mission Kakatiya.
He said it was unfortunate that despite Telangana having eight BJP and eight Congress MPs, neither party was raising the state’s concerns in Parliament. “Instead of representing Telangana’s cause, they are trying to suppress it,” he said.
What Kishan Reddy said in the Parliament
Kishan Reddy, who was speaking during the discussion on the AP Reorganisation (Amendment) Bill, 2026, in the Rajya Sabha on Thursday, said that it was the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA)-2 government at the Centre which had passed the AP Reorganisation Act in 2014.
“As soon as the state was bifurcated, KCR’s family fell on Sonia Gandhi’s feet. Didn’t they forget about the merger of seven mandals with AP?” he asked.
Talking about the Kaleshwaram project, Kishan Reddy pointed out that the National Dam Safety Authority (NDSA), in its report, had clearly stated that the pillars of the Medigadda Barrage under the project had sunk.
Observing that thousands of crores of people’s money had gone down the drain, the Union minister questioned where that kind of money came from.
“They say that not a single rupee was taken from outside. Then where did they get all those funds for the project? They built the project through various financial and banking lending institutions under the Centre,” Kishan Reddy stated.
“They never cared to consult the institutions or experts, and acted as they liked, making it the ATM of KCR’s family,” he alleged.
Also recalling how the Congress, which came to power after 2023, had promised that a proper inquiry would be ordered and those found guilty would be sent to jail, Kishan Reddy questioned why Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy has become mute on the issue now.
“The Chief Minister won’t do anything,” he said.
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