Telangana Assembly session to be stormy over water row

The winter session of the Telangana Legislative Assembly, beginning on Monday, is expected to be stormy as it comes amid a heated war of words between the ruling Congress and the opposition Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) over river water issues.

The water issues are likely to be major items on the agenda of the session as BRS has recently announced an agitation to protect “Telangana’s water rights”, while the Congress Government challenged the opposition party for debate in the Assembly.

BRS president K Chandrasekhar Rao, also known as KCR, who stayed away from public events during the last two years, addressed a press conference recently and said Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy’s regime failed to put pressure on the Union Government, which allegedly returned a detailed project report of the Palamuru-Rangareddy irrigation project. The BRS president also described the Congress regime as “useless”. KCR’s remarks received a strong response from the chief minister, who pointed out that the former had mostly stayed away from the Assembly during the last two years.

Revanth Reddy, who dared the BRS president to attend the Assembly session, had alleged that it was BRS and Chandrasekhar Rao who betrayed Telangana more compared to undivided Andhra Pradesh.

The Government is ready for debate with proofs, he had said. Countering KCR’s comments that he would “skin” the Congress Government, Revanth Reddy, on December 24, took a vow to prevent KCR’s family from coming to power as long as he is in politics and also asserted that Congress would form a government after the next Assembly elections.

Besides water issues, the state is witnessing acrimonious verbal exchanges between BRS and Congress almost on a daily basis.

The BRS may also seek to question the Congress Government over its election promises, including Rs 2,500 monthly financial assistance to poor women and one tola of gold (approximately 11.7 grams) for the wedding of poor young women. However, Congress may corner the BRS over the judicial commission on the Kaleshwaram project, built during the BRS regime, finding fault with KCR for the alleged irregularities and others.

While the Congress is jubilant over its success in the recent by-election to the Jubilee Hills Assembly constituency and the Gram Panchayat elections, the BRS managed to come up with a decent show in the rural polls.

Since its shocking defeat in the 2023 Assembly elections, the electoral performance of BRS has been poor as it drew a blank in the 2024 Lok Sabha, followed by losses in the two Assembly bypolls — Secunderabad Cantonment in 2024 and Jubilee Hills in 2025.