Bhatti accuses Harish Rao of misleading Telangana Assembly on State liabilities

Deputy CM accuses BRS MLAs of misleading on State's financial liabilities, sparking heated exchanges in Assembly session.

Deputy Chief Minister Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka charged the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) MLAs, including former Finance Minister T. Harish Rao, with presenting misleading figures on the State’s financial liabilities during their regime.

Initiating a discussion on ‘Outstanding Liabilities of the State’ during the Telangana Legislative Assembly session on Thursday, the Finance Minister alleged that Mr. Harish Rao understated the government’s liabilities in official documents. “In a book provided by Harish Rao, the column titled ‘tentative risk-weighted outstanding guarantee amount’ minimises the actual loans taken through guarantees by labelling them as low-risk. However, these loans will ultimately be repaid by the government,” he said.

He further asserted that the total liabilities of Telangana, including pending bills and additional obligations, stand at ₹7,11,911 crore, significantly higher than the ₹6,71,157 crore reported in a government White Paper. “Pending bills for pensions, provident funds, hospital dues, and contractors, along with liabilities to corporations and employees, add up to ₹40,154 crore. Another ₹40,000 crore is owed to various institutions, pushing the total debt beyond ₹7 lakh crore,” he explained.

Rejecting Mr. Harish Rao’s repeated statements that the Congress government has raised over ₹1.26 lakh crore in just one year, Mr. Vikramarka reminded that during the same period the Congress had repaid the principal and interest amount of ₹1.13 crore on the loans raised by the BRS government. Mr. Bhatti also alleged that the Congress government has taken loans not to spend indiscriminately on non-functional projects but to repay the loans and implement the schemes. “We are trying to set right the financial mess into which the State was pushed by the BRS government,” he claimed.

Asserting that Mr. Harish Rao misled the House as the Finance Minister during the BRS regime with false figures in the budget, he charged that he was doing the same sitting in the opposition. If at all a privilege motion had to be moved it should be moved against the BRS MLA. Meanwhile, the session witnessed heated exchanges when a treasury bench member reportedly called Harish Rao a “thief.” In retaliation, Mr. Rao referred to the member as a “useless fellow,” prompting demands for both remarks to be expunged.

AIMIM Floor Leader Akbaruddin Owaisi criticised the Congress government for portraying the State’s fiscal health in a negative light, stating that such an image could deter potential investors. He also pointed out discrepancies between the loan figures reported by the State government for the previous BRS regime and those provided by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).