TIMS credit war escalates as BRS leaders allege Congress blocking scrutiny
The political fight over the newly opened Telangana Institute of Medical Sciences (TIMS) in Sanathnagar has intensified, with the BRS accusing the Congress government of blocking opposition scrutiny of the hospital and claiming credit for a project initiated during its tenure.
The latest flashpoint came Wednesday, Aug 19, when Hyderabad Police placed BRS leaders T Harish Rao, P Sabitha Indra Reddy and Talasani Srinivas Yadav under house arrest as they planned to visit the hospital.
The leaders were stopped from leaving their residences. BRS workers gathered outside Harish Rao's residence in Kokapet, leading to heated exchanges with police.
Police said the restrictions were a precaution to prevent any untoward incident.
The BRS condemned the action and alleged that the government was trying to prevent the Opposition from inspecting the newly inaugurated facility. Harish Rao called the move an "undeclared Emergency" and alleged that the government was afraid of scrutiny.
Why is TIMS at the centre of the dispute?
Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy inaugurated the Dr Marri Channa Reddy Telangana Institute of Medical Sciences on Aug. 17. The 1,082-bed hospital is among Telangana's largest government super-speciality facilities and includes 300 ICU beds.
But the BRS says the project was conceived and initiated under former Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao.
The project received administrative sanction in April 2022, and construction began in February 2023. The BRS government had laid the foundation stone in 2022.
The Congress government, which came to power in December 2023, completed the facility and inaugurated it this week.
The competing claims have turned the hospital's opening into a political contest over who should get credit for the project.
BRS says it was seeking to inspect hospital
The BRS has maintained that its leaders wanted to visit the hospital to assess its functioning and raise concerns about deficiencies.
KTR had himself visited the Sanathnagar TIMS site in May and urged the government to complete the remaining work and make the facility accessible to the public.
The hospital has now opened to patients, with the government presenting it as a major expansion of public healthcare infrastructure.
The Congress government has defended the inauguration and highlighted the hospital's scale and facilities, including advanced diagnostics and specialised care.
The house arrests have now added a fresh political dimension to the dispute, with the BRS framing the episode as an attempt to restrict opposition oversight and the police maintaining that the preventive action was taken to avoid a law-and-order situation.
