KCR All Set to Lead BRS' Second War for Water

 Hyderabad: BRS president and former chief minister K. Chandrashekar Rao is all set to unveil an action plan to take on the Congress over water resources and irrigation-related issues, on Sunday.

‘Neellu 2.0’ is expected to become the BRS’ ‘second movement’ and fight for Telangana’s water rights. The details, including public meetings and rallies at irrigation projects among others, are expected to be announced by Chandrashekar Rao at a meeting of party leaders at the BRS headquarters Telangana Bhavan in Banjara Hills on Sunday.

The meeting is expected to take the BRS into an agitation mode on the issue of ‘Neellu’, one of the three pillars of the party’s plank for Telangana —Neellu, Nidhulu, Nyamakalu (water, funds, jobs).

Even as the party is basking in some glory, fresh from what it considers a very good showing in the recent gram panchayat elections by winning around 40 per cent of sarpanch positions, Chandrashekar Rao’s decision to lead the next battle from the front has created a buzz within the party circles. There is anticipation that Sunday afternoon’s meeting will inject a new dose of energy into the party. Chandrashekar Rao, on Saturday afternoon, reached his Nandinagar residence in Banjara Hills, close to the BRS headquarters.

The former chief minister is expected to take on the Congress government on the issues of incomplete irrigation projects that were taken up by the previous BRS government including the likes of the Palamuru-Rangareddy lift irrigation scheme, and the government’s responses so far to Andhra Pradesh pushing ahead with its plans to divert at least 200 tmc ft of water from Godavari river from Polavaram project on the river and take this water to Nallamalasagar on the Krishna river.

The plight of the three barrages of the Kaleshwaram lift irrigation scheme is also expected to figure in the discussions with the Congress government deciding to use the Sundilla barrage to store water drawn from the proposed Pranahita-Chevella scheme, which the then BRS government had redesigned as the Kaleshwaram project with barrages at Medigadda, Sundilla, and Annaram on Godavari river.