KCR guided by tantriks, says Nirmala Sitharaman

K. Chandrashekhar Rao betrayed Telangana and changed his party’s name to Bharata Rashtra Samiti, says Finance Minister

In a reaction to the formation of a new Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) party to replace the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) by Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao on Dasara, Union Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said the former was guided by “ tantriks” and soothsayers.

“TRS was formed to realise Telangana sentiment. Rao betrayed Telangana and changed TRS’s name to Bharatiya Rashtra Samiti (BRS) on the advice of tantriks,” Ms. Sitharaman said in a statement.

She further said that when the State was formed, Mr. Rao had talked about women’s empowerment “but for four years from 2014 to 2018, there was not a single woman Minister in the TRS government”.

Even after the TRS’s re-election, for almost a year, there was no woman Minister, Ms. Sitharaman added. 

“KCR, on the advice of tantriks and numerologists, stopped going to the Secretariat, did not induct women for many years in his Cabinet, and now has changed the party’s name on their advice,” she said.

Under KCR’s rule, the State had become revenue deficit from being a revenue surplus State, Ms. Sitharaman said, adding that the State had borrowings of ₹3 lakh crore, with a debt to State GDP ratio touching almost 25%.

Talking about the Kaleshwaram irrigation project, Ms. Sitharaman said it was supposed to be completed with a budget of ₹40,000 crore but this had “shot up to ₹1,40,000 crore without a proper explanation on the reasons for the escalation. ”On all fronts, the TRS government has totally failed,” she said.