B. Mahesh Kumar Goud
| Photo Credit: NAGARA GOPAL

TPCC president Mahesh Kumar Goud said Prime Minister Narendra Modi should introspect his conduct while making wild allegations against the Telangana government on the Kancha Gachibowli lands and not blindly parrot what the state BJP leaders fed him.

Countering Prime Minister’s allegations that the Telangana government destroyed the ‘forest cover’ in the University of Hyderabad, he said that it was Mr. Modi who inaugurated five new buildings at the University of Hyderabad (UoH) in October 2023 that lacked mandatory municipal, forest and environmental clearances. He asked Mr. Modi whether he had found out how many trees were felled while constructing the buildings that he inaugurated.

He said it were the BJP governments that had systematically destroyed forests for corporate interests. He cited 17,000 trees cut in Gandhinagar, Ahmedabad and 1.09 lakh trees axed nationwide in the past five years under PM Modi’s tenure. At the same time, he accused Mr. Modi of allocating ‘lakhs of acres of forest lands’ to industrial giants without caring for environmental concerns.

Accusing Mr. Modi of diverting attention from Telangana’s successes to suppress Congress’s pro-poor schemes, he alleged that the BJP couldn’t digest schemes like distribution of fine rice to the poor, SC classification reforms and 42% BC reservations.

Attack BRS and KTR

Mr. Goud claimed large-scale rice scam during the BRS regime and alleged that BRS chief K. Chandrashekhar Rao’s family members were involved in converting the coarse rice to fine rice in collusion with rice millers. “BRS leaders have no right to speak about fine rice distribution. Have they forgotten their own scams?” he questioned.

Modi misled

Addressing a separate press conference, Bhongir MP Chamala Kiran Kumar Reddy alleged that Mr. Modi was misled by the AI-generated fake images of animals and forests on the Kancha Gachibowli lands. Unfortunately, the Prime Minister believed in fake images and videos and without verifying them he spoke on the lands, he said.

Mr. Reddy said the PMO officers should visit Telangana to understand the welfare schemes here to apprise the Prime Minister on their implementation. The BJP governments in other States have not done half of what the Telangana government did in the last 15 months. He said the sincerity of Mr. Modi reflects from the fact that he has not spoken a word so far on the caste survey done in Telangana to identify the population of Backward Classes. Mr. Modi feared the Congress government that had initiated revolutionary changes in the recent past.