Hyderabad; The ghost of corruption continues to haunt Congress party even though the party has distanced itself from the people accused of such charges.
AICC president Rahul Gandhi, kicking off his party’s election campaign on Saturday, had singled out Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao’s family and said it was the epitome of corruption.
On Sunday, K.T. Rama Rao, the son of the Chief Minister, hit back demanding to know who had presided over the regime of corruption in undivided Andhra Pradesh.
In a tweet, KTR said: “As alleged by your current best friend, and then opposition leader Naidu, was Jala yagnam mere Dhana yagnam? Was your then CM (Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy) Raja of Corruption? Though Congress had nothing to do with family of YSR, still it had to carry the baggage.”
Mr Rama Rao said that “another blatant lie that your script writers made you mouth yesterday was that the cost of Kaleswaram has been escalated to Rs 1 lakh crore.” He said the Congress party under Dr Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy as Chief Minister had conceived Kaleswaram with an initial outlay of Rs 17,000 crore in 2007, but within a year, in 2008, the cost had shot up to Rs 38,200.
In 2010, the Congress again revised it to Rs 40,000 crore.
He said the Central Water Commission gave final clearance for Rs 80,190 crore and not Rs 1 lakh crore as alleged by Rahul Gandhi.
The caretaker minister said that Rahul Gandhi’s corruption charge has no basis and advised him to refrain from spreading canards against the KCR family.
He said the escalation was due to the rehabilitation and resettlement package due to the new land acquisition act of 2013.
