KCR skips budget session speech by Guv Tamilisai

Hyderabad: Former Chief Minister and Leader of Opposition (LoP) in the Assembly, K Chandrashekhar Rao (KCR), skipped the first day of the Telangana Assembly budget sessions addressed by Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan on Thursday.

BRS president KCR took his oath as an MLA on Thursday, and he was also elected as leader of the opposition by its party legislators, which met after assembly polls in December 2023.

KCR, who was elected as MLA from Gajwel constituency, could not take the oath as he underwent total hip replacement surgery after a fall in his Erravelli farmhouse within a week after the assembly election results.

According to party sources, KCR will attend the sessions on February 10, when the Congress is set to present its maiden budget.

However, KCR’s son KT Rama Rao, his nephew Harishna Rao (MLAs), and his daughter Kavitha (MLC) attended the budget speech by the governor.

On Tuesday, former CM KCR, who addressed party leaders and workers at party headquarters Telangana Bhavan here for the first time after his total hip surgery, decided to hold a public meeting in Nalgonda town on February 13 to protest the Congress Government’s alleged decision to hand over irrigation projects in the Krishna basin to the Krishna River Management Board (KRMB).

Countering the Congress government’s charges against her previous BRS government’s irrigation work, KCR said the BRS has been fighting for the rightful water share of Telangana in Krishna for the past 10 years.

He said the BRs government had resisted the Center’s earlier attempts for a takeover of irrigation projects by KRMB.

The BRS would raise the issue during the budget session of the assembly, KCR added.

State Irrigation Minister N. Uttam Kumar Reddy had earlier said the Congress government would not be handing over the control of Telangana’s irrigation projects to the KRMB.