BJP legislators meet Guv against KCR

Hyderabad, May 13 (INN): The legislators of Bharatiya Janata Party called on Governor ESL Narasimhan at Raj Bhavan here on Wednesday requesting him to direct the State Government to involve city MLAs in Swachh Hyderabad campaign.

The BJP delegation comprised of State Unit president G Kishan Reddy, floor leader Dr K Lakshman, MLAs Chintala Ramachandra Reddy, NVSS Prabhakar and Raja Singh and MLC N Ramchander Rao. In their representation submitted to the Governor, the BJP legislators complained that Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao was not involving the elected representatives in his decision. "It appears that the Chief Minister is banking mostly on the advice of the bureaucrats, be it cleaning of Hussain Sagar, be it digging a huge tank in the place of Indira Park, building auditorium, food courts, restaurants at NTR Stadium, building of skyscrapers around Necklace Road, shifting of Secretariat from the present area to T.B. Hospital and from there to Gymkhana Grounds and, God knows where. In any of these proposals, the Chief Minister has never consulted the local MLAs nor the MPs," they said.

Citing an instance, the BJP leaders said that the proposals relating to Indira Park and NTR Stadium fall under the Constituency of Musheerabad, which is represented by Dr. Laxman. People are agitating against these proposals for Indira Park and NTR Stadium provide much needed lung-space in otherwise concrete jungle of Hyderabad. Dr.Laxman has never been consulted in spite of the on-going protests from the people, they said.

"The Chief Minister, once on the floor of the House, promised that he would specially convene a meeting of the Hyderabad MLAs to discuss issues threadbare and find solutions. Almost one year after, no such meeting had taken place. On the other hand, the Chief Minister has been announcing certain schemes and certain policy initiatives without even consulting or involving Hyderabad MLAs. Recently, the Chief Minister has announced Swachh Hyderabad, apparently as part of Swatch Bharat Mission, to work towards making Hyderabad clean and green. BJP has no qualms with the proposal and, in fact, we welcome it. However, what is unfortunate in this is non-inclusion of City MLAs," Kishan Reddy said.

The BJP leaders alleged that the State Government is apparently involving ruling party MLAs and MLCs, who are from Telangana Districts, ignoring Hyderabad MLAs. The GHMC is spending about Rs. 200 crore for this. Officials and Ministers have been holding review meetings apparently for the implementation of Swachh Hyderabad programme. "We have a feeling that the Chief Minister is deliberately excluding the city MLAs because most of the MLAs of City are from non-TRS Parties. With an eye on GHMC elections, the Chief Minister would like to ensure the visibility of TRS MLAs at the expense of the people-elected MLAs of different parties. This is nothing but a mockery of democracy. What Chief Minister has been doing is breach of the privileges of the Members and an attempt to bypass democratically elected representatives of the people," they alleged.

"As the custodian of the Constitution, we request you to instruct the Chief Minister and other Cabinet Ministers to involve all the MLAs belonging to Hyderabad, no matter which party they belong to, in decision making process and in all the initiatives relating to Hyderabad including Swachh Hyderabad programme," they demanded in their representation.