The ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi and opposition Bharatiya Janata Party on Thursday engaged in a bitter battle on increasing prices affecting the common man, obviously to score a political point over each other.
If the TRS launched state-wide protests against increasing fuel prices, the BJP retorted it with protests over increased power tariff.
In Hyderabad, TRS legislator and chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao’s daughter Kalvakuntla Kavitha took up the agitation in front of the state civil supplies corporation office at Begumpet to protest against hike in fuel and cooking gas prices.
She demanded the Central government roll back these inflated prices of common man’s basic resources like fuel, LPG, food items.
“The people are Telangana are protesting on the roads because of the bad policies of the union government at the centre,” she said.
Kavitha said Prime Minister Narendra Modi was always either in election mode or airplane mode.
“We, the TRS party cadres, are in people's mode and development mode. We shall demand on behalf of the nation over the policies of the Centre. It collected taxes from the poor of India and waived off the loans of the Industrialists,” she criticised.
On the other hand, Telangana BJP president Bandi Sanjay came down heavily on the TRS government on the latest power tariff hike in the state.
He said the hike has imposed huge burden on the people who are just recovering from Coronavirus-induced financial crisis.
“It is atrocious on its part to impose a burden of Rs 6,000 crore on the people in the form of increased power tariff,” Sanjay said in a statement.
He alleged that the state government, which has miserably failed to collect power bills from the people of the Old City of Hyderabad, has chosen to transfer this loss on the common people in other parts of the state.
“The state government is yet to clear the arrears to the extent of Rs 48,000 crore due to be paid to power distribution companies (Discoms). At the same time, out of Rs 17,000 crore dues to the Discoms from various consumers, the government departments themselves are supposed to pay Rs 12,598 crore. And out of Rs 4,603 crore dues to be recovered from consumers, most of the dues are from old city of Hyderabad,” he pointed out.
Stating that the BJP would continue its fight till the government rolls back the power tariff hike, the BJP president said the party would take up agitation programmes in all the district headquarters across the state against increased power charges.