BRS working president KT Rama Rao on Sunday accused Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy of deliberately denying irrigation water to farmers, charging that the Congress government was using the drought to dodge its obligations on seeds, fertilisers, crop procurement and bonuses. He made the claim at a massive Rythu Garjana public meeting in Adilabad, where a large crowd of farmers and BRS cadre answered his lines with loud cheers and slogans.

Rama Rao put a price tag on the anger. He demanded immediate payment of Rs 60,000 per acre, covering three pending Rythu Bandhu instalments and the investment assistance due for the current Yasangi season. He held the Congress government directly responsible for the prevailing drought conditions in the state.

The broken promise on Rythu Bandhu

Rama Rao recalled that the Congress had promised to raise Rythu Bandhu from Rs 10,000 to Rs 15,000 per acre every year. According to him, the party has not honoured even the existing commitment. Every time he listed a pending payment, the crowd responded with applause.

He also demanded four pending instalments of promised assistance for tenant farmers. For landless agricultural labourers, he demanded Rs 36,000 each, a figure he calculated at Rs 1,000 a month for the 36 months since the Congress came to power. He also questioned the status of the promised Indiramma Atmeeya Bharosa assistance, which he said was meant for 36,000 beneficiaries.

Blaming El Nino

The BRS leader said the government was using El Nino and rainfall deficit to shift responsibility for the agrarian crisis. He argued that the rainfall deficit in Telangana did not explain the situation on its own. Despite recording nearly twice Telangana’s rainfall deficit, he said, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka were not facing comparable drought conditions.

That comparison gave his attack a sharper edge. If a neighbouring state with a larger rainfall shortfall is not in the same crisis, Rama Rao argued, the problem lies in governance, not the weather. He told the crowd that farmers in Telangana were being pushed to leave their lands fallow and submit self-declarations before they could take up cultivation.

He then delivered the line that drew the loudest reaction from the stage.

“What is the need of the government which cannot stand by its farmers?”

The question was aimed at what he described as a betrayal. Rama Rao recalled that before the elections, Rahul Gandhi, Revanth Reddy and Congress leaders released a Farmers Declaration in this very town, promising welfare and support to agriculture. Once in power, he said, the government had not only caused an agrarian crisis but was now asking farmers to give self-declarations to escape responsibility for crop losses during El Nino.

Deaths and distress in Adilabad

Rama Rao cited the deaths by suicide of 108 farmers in the erstwhile Adilabad district alone as evidence of the distress. He said he had met the families of four farmers who died by suicide in Talamadugu mandal and extended financial assistance to them. He accused the Congress government of failing to support distressed households, and said that under the previous government, families of farmers who died received Rs 5 lakh within 15 days.

Godavari water, unused

The sharpest numbers in his speech concerned water that never reached the fields. Rama Rao said nearly 750 TMCft had flowed downstream into the sea during the year. He stated that around one lakh cusecs was flowing past the Kannepalli pump house without being lifted.

He recalled that the BRS had urged the government on June 19 to operate the pumps to fill the Sriram Sagar Project and tanks. He questioned why the government had refused to act on suggestions from retired engineers. In his view, the water was there, and the decision not to lift it was political.

He argued that proper use of the Kaleshwaram and Palamuru-Rangareddy Lift Irrigation Schemes could have prevented crop losses across 35 lakh acres. He accused the government of deliberately neglecting Kaleshwaram for political reasons. He also said the distributary canals of the Chanaka-Korata project remained incomplete, even though its trial run had been completed during the BRS regime. He questioned the proposal to take up Tummidihatti while the canal works of the existing project were still unfinished.

Loan waiver shrinking on paper

On farmer welfare, Rama Rao charged that the Congress government had failed to implement the Rs 2 lakh loan waiver in full. He pointed to the shrinking figures. The commitment, he said, began at Rs 50,000 crore and was revised to Rs 41,000 crore, then Rs 31,000 crore, and finally Rs 26,000 crore. He also said non-payment of the Rythu Bima premium had affected the insurance scheme.

Industries, power and the BJP

Rama Rao widened the attack beyond agriculture. He accused the Congress government of weakening the power sector and damaging Singareni through alleged coal irregularities. He questioned the closure and dismantling of the Adilabad CCI factory and the alleged shifting of Telangana industries to Gujarat.

He did not spare the BJP-led union government either. He criticised it for failing to bring national projects and major educational and medical institutions to Adilabad. Both parties, he said, were neglecting Telangana. "Both the Congress and the BJP are hand-in-glove in looting the State treasury, but neglecting people," he said.

He also targeted BJP MLA Payal Shankar, who had promised to get the CCI factory reopened. Rama Rao alleged that the MLA was instead busy striking deals with Revanth Reddy under the guise of an industrial park.

What comes next

Rama Rao assured farmers that the BRS would keep fighting for their rights. He urged them not to lose hope and promised to restore agricultural support under the leadership of K Chandrashekar Rao. These are his allegations and his demands. The rally was a party event, and the claims were delivered from the stage without any response from the government included in the report.

Before the rally, he handed over Rs 1 lakh each, on behalf of the BRS, to the families of five children who died in a recent fire accident at Adilabad’s RIMS hospital. It was a rare moment of direct relief in a speech otherwise built around anger, and it showed how the party is positioning itself in the district ahead of the next political fight.