“Telangana is Rahul Gandhi’s ATM”: KTR counts a thousand days of unkept promises

KTR used the induction of Jibran Sharif, a minority leader from Khairatabad, into the BRS at Telangana Bhavan on 25 October to open fire on the Congress government. He had one number in hand: a thousand days. Before the election, he said, Rahul Gandhi had promised six guarantees within 100 days; a thousand days into the government, they remained unkept. Gandhi was touring the country but could not find his way to Telangana, where he had made 420 promises. The sharpest line of the evening was that Chief Minister Revanth Reddy was running the state as an ATM for Rahul Gandhi.

He went through the promises one by one. Where, he asked, were the two lakh jobs promised in the first year? What had become of the Rs 4,000 crore budget pledged for minority welfare? Had the Aasara pension, Rs 2,000 under the BRS, been raised to the promised Rs 4,000? Before the election, Gandhi had sat with unemployed youth at a tea stall in Ashok Nagar; now, KTR said, he did not care.

The speech did not stop there. He said the Chief Minister had given five acres worth about Rs 200 crore to his brother for Rs 7 crore, and demanded full disclosure of a Rs 1,000 crore deal involving another brother living in America. The government answers questions with cases, he said, when questioning it is not only the opposition’s duty but the people’s right. He accused the Centre of using the ED, CBI and Income Tax Department to intimidate opposition leaders. The BJP divides people and the Congress exploits Telangana, he said, and KCR would be Chief Minister again in 2028.

The background

The speech did not come out of nowhere. Since early October, Revanth Reddy has been raising questions about land and hotel holdings linked to the KCR and KTR families. KTR answered with a challenge to a judicial inquiry, and Harish Rao asked for an independent probe covering both sides. Putting the Chief Minister’s brothers on the table is the next move in that contest.

Our view: this is one side’s statement. The three promise questions KTR asked, on jobs, the minority budget and the Aasara pension, can be answered with numbers, and the government should answer them. On the asset allegations, an independent inquiry into both sides is the only clean way out. Until both happen, this stays a war of words.