Hyderabad: Chaos prevailed in the state Assembly on Wednesday during the budget session when a piece of ‘advice’ given by Telangana chief minister A Revanth Reddy to Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) working president KT Rama Rao (KTR) resulted in heated arguments, allegations and counter-allegations, emotional outbursts, sloganeering and finally the adjournment of the session by the Speaker.
It all started after KTR’s speech, when Revanth stood up and said that while the former was repeatedly saying that the BRS would cooperate with the Congress government, the leader of the opposition K Chandrasekhar Rao (KCR) was missing from the budget sessions. Referring to a popular saying that ‘holding a grain from a vessel could reveal whether the rice is cooked or not’, Revanth said that BRS’ ways during the sessions were “enough” to show that the party wasn’t going to cooperate with the government.
Out of the blue, Revanth went a step ahead and “advised” KTR that if the latter believed in his elder sisters sitting behind him, he would end up at the Jubilee Bus Station (as in begging). “After sailing on our side, they dumped us and joined the other side,” he said, criticising KTR for questioning why Congress didn’t have a minister from the minority community in his cabinet.
The two women sitting behind KTR were former ministers Sabitha Indra Reddy and Sunitha Laxma Reddy.
All hell broke loose, with BRS MLAs getting into the well and raising slogans against the State government. Legislative affairs minister D Sridhar Babu intervened and said that the chief minister has not mentioned any member’s name while making the ‘elder sisters’ remark. The Speaker tried to bring the house in order and gave the mike to MLA Sabitha Indra Reddy.
Sabitha Indra Reddy’s emotional outburst
In an emotional outburst, Sabitha accused Revanth of repeatedly targeting her during every Assembly session.
“It was I as an elder sister who had invited Revanth Reddy to join Congress. I had told him that he had a bright future in the party and even told him that he will one day become the chief minister. But why is he repeatedly targeting me,” she questioned, in a crackling tone, demanding the chief minister to withdraw his statements.
“Even during the Lok Sabha election campaign, he has repeatedly said that I would speak something in the morning and take a U-turn by evening,” she said. All of a sudden, the house was consumed by the sister sentiment, seen by the BRS as an insult to a woman MLA in the house. The voices grew louder and the anger in the opposition benches was loudly pronounced.
Seethakka rises in support of Revanth Reddy
Sabitha was confronted by Women and child welfare minister Seethakka, who reminded that both Sabitha and Sunitha had served as the ministers in the Congress government between 2004 and 2014, yet they shifted their loyalties to the BRS.
“Sabitha Indra Reddy won on a Congress ticket and joined the BRS. It is ironic that she recently led the BRS delegation to the Governor to give a memorandum against Congress when BRS MLAs shifted their loyalties. When our party was defeated in 2014 and 2018, we owned the responsibility for the losses and stood our ground. We never took credit for the victories and shrug-off responsibility for the losses. That is not our culture,” Seeathakka remarked, pointing her guns at both the women BRS MLAs.
“After enjoying plum positions in the party for ten years, today they are thumping the benches when KTR criticises the policies of the party which gave them life,” she added.
Seethakka also stated that the chief minister made those comments against Sabitha, as the latter had dumped him after confirming an appointment to meet Rahul Gandhi in New Delhi at the last minute before the recent Lok Sabha elections, putting Revanth in a tight spot. The chief minister stood up and explained his comments on ‘elder sisters’ of KTR.
CM Revanth stands his ground
“There are private discussions, and there are discussions in the Assembly. Because Sabithakka put our private conversations in the public domain, as a continuation of that, I want to say a few things,” he said.
While accepting what Sabitha had said while inviting him into the Congress when she was in the grand old party as true, Revanth said that she had told him that she was going to take the responsibility for making him victorious from Malkajgiri Lok Sabha segment if he joined the Congress and contested the 2019 Lok Sabha election from that segment.
“As soon as I joined the party, she fell prey to the deceptive words of KCR and joined the BRS, only to stay in power,” he alleged, reiterating that he shared a close bond with her politically and also through family relations with her.
As the BRS MLAs started interrupting the proceedings, he said that he had to go to receive the newly appointed Governor who was going to arrive at Shamshabad airport, after which he would drop him at the Rashtrapathi Bhavan and will come back to give an elaborate explanation on his remarks.
Bhatti accuses Sabitha of preventing Dalit from being CLP leader
Deputy chief minister Bhatti Vikramarka who continued the proceedings, said that despite the Congress giving key portfolios to Sabitha in 2004, again in 2009, and had given her MLA ticket in 2014 as well.
“When she wanted to join BRS, I, along with several Congress leaders went to her residence and tried to convince her to stay with us. For the first time in the history of Congress, a Dalit was made the Congress Legislative Party (CLP) leader. I told her that if she and other Congress MLAs joined BRS, our party would lose the leader of opposition status. We assured her that the party would give as much importance to her as we did in the past. But she chose to join the BRS, only to prevent me, a Dalit, from continuing as the CLP leader,” Vikramarka alleged.
In the pandemonium that followed, the Telangana Assembly Speaker adjourned the house till Thursday.
BRS leaders demand apology from CM Revanth
Speaking to the media, Sabitha Indra Reddy broke-down. “What the chief minister and the deputy chief minister said about me, applies to all the women of the State,” she said.
Condemning Revanth’s remarks against the two BRS women legislators, KTR stated that Revanth has insulted all the women of Telangana, and that he was unfit to be the chief minister of the state. KTR added that there were already very few women leaders in our country, and that such “inhuman remarks” about women leaders needed to be condemned by every citizen.
Calling it an insult to womanhood, BRS MLA T Harish Rao said that the ruling party broke all norms of running the house and tried to gag the voices of the opposition. He questioned whether it was a mistake to question the Congress government to implement its poll promises in the assembly.
BRS leaders made it clear that they would not stop their protests till the chief minister apologised for his remarks against the women MLAs.
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