Telangana chief minister K Chandrashekhar Rao gave away ₹10 lakh each to the families of five soldiers, who laid down their lives fighting the Chinese aggression in the Galwan Valley in 2020, and ₹5 lakh each to the kin of 12 labourers, who were killed in a fire incident at a scrap factory in Hyderabad in March this year, at a function in Patna in the presence of his Bihar counterpart Nitish Kumar on Wednesday.
While his visit to Bihar has been seen as part of the efforts to cobble up an Opposition alliance of regional power centres to take on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 2024 general elections, Rao said that he wanted to come to Patna to give a small token amount to the families who lost their brave hearts in Galwan and the labourers who played a key role with their blood and sweat in the progress of Telangana.
“I cannot compensate for the loss you have suffered, but this is what I have planned not only in Bihar, but across several states. I have also asked to frame a policy for the migrant workers who contribute immensely in Telangana’s growth,” he added.
Thanking Rao for coming to Bihar and taking care of the migrants, chief minister Nitish Kumar said that the kind of work Rao has done in his state after playing the lead role in Telangana’s creation was unparalleled. “Don’t worry what kind of things people say against you. Telangana people will never forget your contribution. Your Mission Bhagirathi project to provide safe drinking water to all inspired us to plan Ganga Udhbav Yojana to take water to arid regions of Gaya, Bodh Gaya, Rajgir and Nawada through pipelines. How people criticise you is beyond me, but some people are only on propaganda and publicity without doing any concrete work,” he added.
Hitting out at the Centre, Kumar further said that the funding to states was dropping, but publicity continued. “A backward state like Bihar needed special status. I kept demanding it. I had also gone to their side. Had Bihar got special status, its growth would have been different by now and added momentum to the country’s progress. The media is also giving one-sided publicity. They criticise all and praise just one,” he added, exhorting media to be neutral in its approach.
Deputy chief minister Tejashwi Prasad Yadav said that what Rao has done was an example of how all states can participate in each other’s moments of joy and sorrow. “Our government is of the poor and the masses and we will always be with them. But the federal structure in the country needs to be strengthened to give every state a level-playing field. Unless the poor and backward states like Bihar get the required support, the country cannot progress. A country is made of states only. Unfortunately, poor states are burdened more,” he added.
Tejashwi said that the states today have an added challenge of dealing with the “poison spread in the society through social and communal tensions and fanaticism.”
“We together have to kill this poison, as social harmony and brotherhood are the prerequisites for any growth,” he added.
