BRS flays CM for taking up Musi ‘padayatra’ somewhere else after razing houses in city

HYDERABAD

Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) has criticised Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy’s Musi Rejuvenation padayatra for 2.5 km from Sangem to Bhimalinga in Valigonda mandal of Yadadri-Bhongir district on Friday, as a “political drama” stating that the project is displacing about one lakh people in the city, but it is taken up elsewhere where there’s no displacement.

In a statement, BRS working president K.T. Rama Rao said it was like applying ointment somewhere while the wound was somewhere else and sought to know why the Chief Minister had taken up padayatra at a place where there were no victims of the project. He observed that the location was chosen intentionally as neither the CM nor other leaders of the Congress had courage to do it in the areas where there was displacement.

He blamed the nearly six-decade rule of the Congress and Telugu Desam Party (TDP) for turning the Musi, a live river, into a nala carrying drainage water. It was the two parties’ inability to prevent filth reaching the river course that had reduced it into a drainage, he alleged. Farmers affected downstream were also due to the neglect of the river course in city, he noted.

Harish Rao condemns arrests

Meanwhile, senior leader of the party T. Harish Rao condemned the illegal arrests of BRS leaders and activists across the combined Nalgonda district in the wake of the Chief Minister’s padayatra. While some leaders and activists were arrested, former MLAs K. Prabhakar Reddy, Ch. Lingaiah and K. Bhupal Reddy, were not allowed to move out of their homes.

He suggested the CM to take up his padayatra along the Musi in city where the project had either displaced or about to displace people, if he was sincere. There was no logic in doing padayatra in the combined Nalgonda district after demolishing houses in Hyderabad and making marks for many more demolitions.