Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao on Thursday accused the Union government of discriminating against his state and conspiring to weaken state governments financially, PTI reported.
At the Telangana State Formation Day celebrations in Hyderabad, Rao said that all governments at the Centre have worked against the spirit of the Constitution and eroded the autonomy of the states. “The government currently in power at the Centre is based on the frivolous doctrine of strong Centre-weak States,” he alleged.
The chief minister accused the Union government of imposing “economic sanctions” on states and urged it to stop violating their rights, The Indian Express reported.
“The Centre’s attitude towards Telangana state, which is working with financial discipline and prudence and well within the FRBM [Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management] limits, is creating a major problem,” he said.
Rao claimed that Telangana was losing Rs 5,000 crore each year as the state refused to implement the Union government’s “anti-farmer” electricity reforms.
The Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management Act requires states to keep fiscal deficit within 3%.
However, on February 15, Telangana Energy Minister Jagadish Reddy said that the Union government had offered to relax the limit and allow the state government to raise additional loans of Rs 25,000 crore, if it implemented the electricity reforms to install power meters on agricultural pump sets, according to the Deccan Chronicle.
The chief minister has opposed the suggestion, saying it is a move to privatise the agriculture sector.
“In five years, the state lost Rs 25,000 crore,” he said on Thursday. “If we want this Rs 25,000 crore, we have to install meters at the farmer’s well and collect the power charges. That is not our policy.”
The chief minister also accused the Centre of introducing changes in taxes in order to deprive states of their due share, according to India Today. He alleged that the Union government was “squandering millions of crores of rupees” and said that its attitude had become a stumbling block for states like Telangana.
In recent months, Rao has spoken to other Opposition parties in the country in a bid to unitedly take on the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Centre. On February 20, he met Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray and said that the two leaders had made a “good start” towards fighting injustice and the misuse of laws.
He also held meetings with Arvind Kejriwal and Pinarayi Vijayan, the chief ministers of Delhi and Kerala.
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