National issues to dominate Telangana Budget session
HYDERABAD: In its first Budget session of the Telangana Legislature after rebranding the TRS as the BRS to enter national politics, the ruling party is expected to corner the Narendra Modi-led BJP government at the Centre on a range of issues including agriculture, irrigation and power.
BRS president and Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao, according to party sources, plans to use the session beginning on February 3 to deride the Modi government’s “lopsided policies” regarding the Centre’s power reforms, financial restrictions on Telangana, curbs on the MNREGA scheme, paddy procurement, unemployment, inflation, privatisation of PSUs, higher fuel prices, among others.
The CM is expected to attack the Modi government about how its “skewed policies,” in addition to harming the irrigation and power sectors, have affected farmers and the agricultural sector. Further, the BRS government would also highlight the Centre’s “discrimination” towards Telangana in sanctioning of funds and projects in the last nine years.
he CM announced that a special session of the Assembly will be held in December to expose the “discrimination” of the Centre towards Telangana as well as highlight the financial restrictions the Modi government had imposed on Telangana by cutting loans, which prevented Telangana’s growth.
Rao was preoccupied with national politics, the expansion of BRS into other states in December, and the first public meeting in Khammam on January 18 after the party’s name change. As a result, the special session of the Assembly was postponed.
However, the CM surprised everyone by scheduling the Assembly session only three days into the Budget session of Parliament, which would get underway on January 31. It has been a tradition to hold the Assembly Budget session in March since the days of undivided Andhra Pradesh. This tradition was followed even after the formation of Telangana state in 2014.
The Union Budget will be presented in Parliament on February 1. After going through its proposals to get clarity on the state’s share in Central taxes and centrally sponsored schemes (CSS), the CM wants to arrive at the actual size of Telangana Budget 2023-24 and present it in the Assembly on February 3, sources said.
The state Budget has been drafted but the CM is awaiting for the Union budget for clarity, and would revise the final Budget figures accordingly.
