Telangana minister dares BRS for debate on 10-year rule

Hyderabad, Oct 9 (IANS) Telangana’s Minister for Transport and Backward Classes Welfare Ponnam Prabhakar on Wednesday threw a challenge to the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) for a debate on the performance of its government during the last 10 years.

Reacting to BRS leader Jagdish Reddy’s criticism of Congress rule of the last 10 months, the minister asked if he was ready for a debate on the performance of the 10-year rule of the BRS.

“Let the BRS tell people how many jobs it created during the last decade," he said while talking to media persons after an interaction with the Congress workers at the party headquarters Gandhi Bhavan here.

He claimed that the Congress government is making sincere efforts to fill the vacancies in the government departments and the unemployed were happy over the recruitment.

Recalling that water, jobs, and funds were the main agenda of the Telangana statehood movement, Prabhakar said the Congress government was working to achieve this agenda.

Claiming that the Congress was taking steps to implement all poll promises, he alleged that the opposition parties were trying to create hurdles. He said instead of cooperating with the government, the opposition parties were trying to create impediments and issuing threats to topple the government.

"Despite all the criticism by the opposition, the government is committed to providing jobs to the unemployed by filling the vacancies," he said.

Reacting to the criticism by the BRS about the implementation of the overseas scholarship scheme, the minister claimed that during the BRS rule, only 150 students were provided financial assistance to study abroad while the Congress government has taken steps to provide assistance to 500 students.

On the Musi Riverfront development project, Prabhakar said people are being shifted from the river bed only after providing them with alternate shelter. He said affected families are not only being provided double-bedroom houses, but the government is also taking care of the education of their children.

The Congress leader said the BRS had not learned any lessons from its defeat in Assembly elections and the humiliation in the Parliament polls. The minister, who received petitions from people and party workers, said on the direction of Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee Mahesh Kumar Goud, ministers were participating in the interaction programme at the party headquarters.