Slamming the Congress government for failing to protect the water rights of Telangana, BRS supremo K Chandrasekhar Rao on Tuesday called upon the party cadres to launch another movement over water for irrigation and announced a huge public meeting in Nalgonda on 13 February on the issue. Rao, popularly known as KCR, came to the party headquarters for the first time after the defeat in assembly polls in December since he was recuperating from hip replacement surgery. This meeting is likely to set the mood for the party’s upcoming Lok Sabha campaign.

The Congress and the BRS became embroiled in a major dispute in the past few days as both parties blamed each other for handing over the irrigation projects – Srisailam and Nagarjuna Sagar on Krishna River – to the Krishna River Board Management (KRMB). The BRS has claimed that this will spell doom for South Telangana, particularly for farmers in Nalgonda and Khammam, while the Congress countered it by saying that it was the BRS government that had agreed to hand over the projects.

A massive gathering of leaders and supporters greeted KCR at the party headquarters on Tuesday. He held a meeting with leaders, former ministers, and public representatives from the Krishna Basin. Describing the attitude of the Congress government as “foolish and dangerous”, KCR vowed to fight to protect the full rights of Telangana over the waters of the Krishna River.

KCR said that the BRS government had fought for the rights of Telangana over water for drinking and irrigation and had made its slogan “Ma Nilu Make” (Our water belongs to us) a reality. It had resisted the pressure from the Centre to maintain the rights of Telangana over the water in Krishna River. “But the decision of the Congress government, which lacks understanding of the issue, has created such a situation that future projects might not see the light of the day,” the former chief minister said.

He pointed out that the decision of the state government will lead to a shortage of drinking water in the districts of Ranga Reddy, Nalgonda, Khammam, and Mahbubnagar, in addition to Hyderabad. It has also jeopardised the completion of ongoing projects, he added.

Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy had on Sunday slammed KCR and even used an unparliamentary word to blame his government for the handover, citing the minutes of the KRMB meetings as well as the Budget papers of last year.

BRS MP joins Congress

In a setback to the BRS, its sitting MP from Peddapalli Venkatesh Netha Borlakunta joined the Congress on Tuesday in the presence of Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy in New Delhi.

Netha, who quit Congress to join BRS in 2019, returned to the grand old party before the coming elections after being promised a nomination from the same seat. Recently another former BRS MLA T Rajaiah also resigned from the BRS. He is eyeing the Warangal MP seat and is likely to join the Congress soon.

The jolt to the BRS came as the ruling party’s election committee started scrutinising applications from ticket aspirants. The party got 306 applications for the 17 Lok Sabha seats with family members of heavyweight leaders eyeing seats like Khammam.

The Chief Minister met Sonia Gandhi and urged her to fight elections from the Khammam seat. Reddy also met Rahul Gandhi and briefed him about the implementation of two more poll promises.