Mahabubnagar: Congress takes a dig at govt for illegal arrests

Mahabubnagar: Leaders and activists of Congress held rallies and organised bandh in the erstwhile Mahabubnagar district on Wednesday in protest against the illegal arrests of Opposition party leaders for visiting Kalwakurthy Lift Irrigation (KLI) project to inspect the recent blast of KLI motors that caused intense damage to Kalwakurthy Lift Irrigation project at Yellur in Kollapur.

Taking part in the 'bandh' rally in Moosapet mandal of Devarkadra constituency in Mahabubnagar district, TPCC secretary and in-charge of Devarkadra constituency G Madhusudhan Reddy took a dig at the TRS government and Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao for his anti-people's policies and for suppressing the voices of Opposition parties, who questioned cheap quality works of irrigation projects and huge loss to the farmers due to blast of the lift motors because of which flow of irrigation water to lakhs of acres has been stalled.

Following TPCC State-wide bandh call in Hyderabad, the Congress cadres across Palamuru region staged protests and held rallies and demanded the TRS government to allow the Opposition leaders to visit the KLI project so that the truth behind the damage can be known to the people.

Speaking to the media at Moosapet, G Madhusudhan Reddy alleged that the TRS government had redesigned projects only to receive kickbacks from the contractors. "The TRS government has dumped the expert committee report on the Palamuru Ranga Reddy Project (PRRLI) and had not advocated the construction of PRRLI near the KLI project. As the PRRLI project is just 400 meters away from the KLI project, the blasting being carried out as part of construction of underground tunnel may have damaged the KLI pump house because of which the pump motors have been blasted and ripped off leading to inundation and submergence of the pump house.

When the congress leaders and the opposition leaders tried to ascertain what is happening by visiting the project, the TRS is using police force to arrest the opposition leaders and suppressing

the voices of the people for exposing the TRS government's failures," Madhusudhan Reddy pointed out.

The TPCC secretary said that 10 floors of the 14 florid pump house at KLI were completely submerged. This damage was caused by manual fault due to the redesigning of the projects, he added. He stated that not only at KLI, the incident at Srisailam Left Bank pump house and breaches at various irrigation projects and reservoirs under Kaleshwaram projects, are clear testimonies of TRS government's low quality construction of projects and looting crores of public money in the name of redesigning of irrigation projects.