A row broke out between the BRS and BJP over sanctioning of medical colleges in Telangana by the Union government with the former accusing the Cabinet ministers of “peddling lies” after Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said the state had listed only Khammam and Karimnagar even though these two districts already have medical colleges.
BRS minister KT Rama Rao, who has been consistently critical of the BJP government at the Centre, on Friday tweeted, “Modiji train your ministers well at least to consistently peddle the same lies and fakery.”
The minister also tweeted past tweets of Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya and Tourism Minister G Kisan Reddy to prove his point that the three ministers had given different replies on the same issue. The BRS has been vocal on the fact that the state did not get any medical college or nursing college sanctioned under the central sponsored schemes.
Yesterday, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said when the Centre asked for the list of places for Medical colleges, the state listed Karimnagar and Khammam. But those places already had medical colleges.
Dr. Mansukh Mandaviya had earlier tweeted that the Telangana government had sent “zero” proposals. He had iterated the same on the floor of the Parliament as well. However, the BRS was grossly unhappy with the tweet of Union minister G Kishan Reddy who hails from Telangana. He had said that the Central government was setting up nine medical colleges in the state but BRS claimed that apart from AIIMS at Bibinagar none of these belong to the Centre. While five were private medical colleges were set up by the state government.
In response to Sitharaman’s claims, BRS produced a letter from 2019 by the then Union health minister where he turned down the proposal for medical colleges in Khammam and Karimnagar attached to district hospitals saying that “Telangana state is not covered under the Phase I and Phase II of the same scheme” but said Cabinet had approved extension of the scheme in Phase III.
The BRS maintained that only after Telangana failed to find a place in the Central list that the state government decided to fund medical colleges in these two districts in August 2022. The BRS also alleged that Gujarat, which got 5 medical colleges sanctioned. had submitted proposals for only three.