Hyderabad, November 10, 2021: Former Minister & ex-Leader of Opposition in Telangana Legislative Council Mohammed Ali Shabbir alleged that the mismanagement and insane borrowings by TRS Government headed by Chief Minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao has pushed the power utilities in the State into bankruptcy.
Addressing the Congress party’s training camp at Auspicious Convention Centre, Kompally on Wednesday, Shabbir Ali said that the credit for the transformation of Telangana from a power deficit to a surplus State goes to the previous Congress regime. However, he said that the present TRS Govt has pushed all power utilities like GENCO, TRANSCO and DISCOMS into huge crisis by borrowing huge loans at higher interest rates to purchase power from Chattisgarh and other companies at costs almost three times higher than the market value. He predicted that the TRS Govt would soon enforce a huge hike in power tariff to overcome the crisis. He said that the situation has turned so worse that several top officials including the Chairman & Managing Director of GENCO & TRANSCO went on long leave without informing the Chief Minister.
Shabbir Ali said that there was a huge power crisis across the country when the Congress party came to power at the Centre and also in undivided Andhra Pradesh in 2004. “As the then Energy Minister, I was part of the Task Force constituted by then Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh to add 1.58 lakh MW of power. This Task Force ensured setting up of several power plants across the country and today almost all States in the country are power surplus,” he said adding that the except for Bhadradri Power Plant, TRS Government did not add a single unit to the power supply across Telangana State. Therefore, TRS Govt taking credit for uninterrupted power supply is bogus, he said.
Speaking about minorities’ welfare, he said that it was the Congress Government, headed by Dr Kotla Vijayabhaskar Reddy, which constituted the country’s first Minorities Welfare Department in 1993 and he had the privilege of being the country’s first Minister for Minorities Welfare. He said an amount of Rs. 3 crore were earmarked for the minorities’ welfare in 1993-94 budget and it got increased to Rs. 1,000 Crore in 2013-14. He said that Congress President Sonia Gandhi had promised 5% Muslim reservation for Muslims in Andhra Pradesh in 2004. This promise was fulfilled in just 58 days after Dr. Y.S Rajashekhara Reddy took over as the Chief Minister. “Although the percentage was reduced from 5% to 4% on the directions of High Court, this decision has so far benefitted nearly 20 lakh poor Muslims in both Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. Lakhs of Muslims are still benefitting from 4% quota in jobs and education,” he said.
Shabbir Ali said that the previous Congress Governments ensured socio-economic and political empowerment of Muslims and other minorities by taking appropriate policy decisions. However, he said that the present TRS Govt has been cheating the Muslims with fake promises and false claims. He said that the Muslim community would never forgive CM KCR for cheating on the promise of 12% reservation. Further, KCR has committed the sin of demolishing six mosques, including two mosques in the Secretariat. Therefore, he predicted that the minorities would vote en masse against the TRS to bring the Congress party back to power in Telangana in the next Assembly elections.
Alleging that TRS and BJP were two sides of the same coin, Shabbir Ali said that the MIM was helping the KCR-Modi in implementing the RSS agenda of damaging the interest of minorities. “Asaduddin Owaisi gave tall statements about Babri Masjid. But he has no guts to speak against KCR who demolished two big mosques in the Secretariat. In fact, the MIM President is preventing other Muslim leaders and organisations from speaking against TRS Govt over the demolition of mosques,” he alleged.
Referring to the claim made by CM KCR in his recent press conference that he did not make a Dalit CM on his advise, Shabbir Ali said KCR must have been in an inebriated condition when he made such a statement. “Can he (KCR) explain when he approached me or contacted me in 2014 to discuss the Chief Minister’s post? KCR is a liar of one of its kind. He lives in an illusionary world and keeps imagining weird things,” he alleged.
“KCR hates Muslims and Dalits from the core of his heart. He can’t tolerate the sight of Muslims or Dalits enjoying top positions. He made four Congress MLCs defect to TRS only to take away my position as Leader of Opposition in Legislative Council almost five months before the end of my tenure. Similarly, he engineered the defection of 12 Congress MLAs only to prevent Bhatti Vikramarka, a Dalit leader, from becoming the LoP in Assembly,” he said.
The Congress leader said that the people would reject the TRS, BJP and MIM in the next elections and Congress would return to power with a thumping majority.