Harish Rao said Naidu wrote to the Centre on October 7 asking that the link be taken up from Polavaram, and this point was included in the NWDA meeting agenda almost immediately. “The new route cuts Telangana out entirely with water from Polavaram going to Cauvery through Bollapalli in AP, bypassing Inchampalli and Nagarjunasagar in Telangana. The original route through Telangana would have irrigated 2,38,236 acres in undivided Warangal, Nalgonda and Rangareddy. This will no longer be possible if AP’s plans are not opposed,” he said. — DC Image

HYDERABAD: The BRS on Saturday warned the state government to not agree to the proposals put forward by Andhra Pradesh on the Godavari-Cauvery river linking project, calling the move of the neighbouring state “a death knell for Telangana’s water interests.”

Addressing a press conference, senior BRS leader and former irrigation minister T. Harish Rao said the state government’s silence on AP Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu’s proposal for linking Godavari from Polavaram in Andhra Pradesh to Cauvery river, raised the question if Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy had “surrendered” to Naidu ahead of the November 3 meeting of the National Water Development Agency in Delhi.

Harish Rao said Naidu wrote to the Centre on October 7 asking that the link be taken up from Polavaram, and this point was included in the NWDA meeting agenda almost immediately. “The new route cuts Telangana out entirely with water from Polavaram going to Cauvery through Bollapalli in AP, bypassing Inchampalli and Nagarjunasagar in Telangana. The original route through Telangana would have irrigated 2,38,236 acres in undivided Warangal, Nalgonda and Rangareddy. This will no longer be possible if AP’s plans are not opposed,” he said.

Telangana, he said, was to get 43 tmc ft of Godavari water through the river linking project which now stood threatened due to AP’s new proposal.

Naidu, he alleged, had tried one route after another to take away Godavari water starting with the Polavaram–Banakacherla link to take 200 tmc ft of water, which was later renamed Nallamalasagar project. Now he had convinced the Centre and was clearing the way to Banakacherla in the name of the Godavari–Cauvery link, Harish Rao said.

“Ten days have passed since Chandrababu wrote that letter. Revanth has been silent. We demand that this slavery of Revanth to Babu ends and that Telangana’s rights are protected. Otherwise we will uproot the Congress party, and we will teach the BJP a lesson,” Harish Rao said.

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