Hyderabad: Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) senior leader Harish Rao disagreed with Union Coal and Mines Minister G Kishan Reddy‘s statement on the merger of seven mandals in Telangana with Andhra Pradesh.

Reddy, in the Rajya Sabha on Thursday, April 2, said the merger was a part of the AP Reorganisation Act of 2014, which Rao called “false, a distortion of history, and an insult to the self-respect of Telangana.”

“It was the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government that brought an amendment to the AP Reorganisation Act. K Chandrasekhar Rao (KCR) had openly opposed the move and even called for a Telangana bandh as a mark of protest,” the Siddipet MLA said.

“Kishan Reddy cannot escape responsibility for that betrayal,” he added.

He also said that the Union Minister’s comments on the Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Project were “false propaganda engineering by Telangana Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy.”

Reminding Reddy that several leaders and institutions, including senior figures from the Centre, had praised the Kaleshwaram project, Rao cited the Economic Survey of India, saying under BRS’s decade-long governance, Telangana’s cultivated area increased from 1.31 crore acres to 2.2 crore acres, attributing the growth to the irrigation project and Mission Kakatiya.

He said it was unfortunate that despite Telangana having eight BJP and eight Congress MPs, neither party was raising the state’s concerns in Parliament. “Instead of representing Telangana’s cause, they are trying to suppress it,” he said.