Congress and BRS spar over crop loan waiver scheme in T’gana

A political slugfest erupted between the ruling Congress and opposition Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) in Telangana over chief minister A Revanth Reddy’s announcement that his government will implement the promise of waiving crop loans up to ₹2 lakh before August 15.
Recently during a Congress rally, Revanth had announced that his government will implement the crop loan waiver, as part of the party’s six guarantees promised before the elections, at any cost by August 15.
“I am throwing a straight challenge at BRS leaders, including its president K Chandrasekhar Rao. If I implement the scheme before August 15, will you resign from your seats and dissolve your party?” he asked during a rally at Kodangal on Tuesday.
Accepting the challenge, former chief minister K Chandrashekar Rao’s nephew and former minister T Harish Rao said he will submit his resignation letter well in advance to the media and other mediators, who could handover the same to legislative assembly speaker on August 15, if the Revanth government “does not implement the crop loan waiver scheme”.
On Friday, Harish Rao arrived at the Telangana Martyrs Memorial in Gun Park and after paying tribute to the Telangana martyrs, he released his resignation letter to the media. He challenged the chief minister to send his resignation letter, too, in advance, so that it could be accepted if his government did not implement the promise.
“Revanth Reddy should prove that he is not trying to cheat the people for votes in the Lok Sabha elections once again,” the BRS leader said.
He reiterated his commitment to resign from his MLA post in the prescribed official format, “if the Congress implemented all its six guarantees before August 15”. He dared the chief minister “to fulfil his promise by sending his resignation letter through his staff, if he was not willing to come to the martyrs memorial for any reason”.
Responding to Harish Rao’s resignation letter, the chief minister said the BRS leader’s resignation letter was just a big drama. “The resignation letter is not in a prescribed format. In fact, it is a lengthy letter and will not be valid. The former minister is acting smart on his resignation. He knows that if it is submitted to the speaker, it will be automatically rejected,” Revanth Reddy said, speaking during a meeting of Congress social media team members at Gandhi Bhavan on Friday.
The chief minister, however, said he will stick to his promise of implementing ₹2 lakh farm loan waiver by August 15. “I accept Harish Rao’s challenge and give my word to implement the scheme,” he said, adding that the scheme would cost ₹30,000 crore to ₹40,000 crore for the state government.