Taking a potshot at Telangana BJP leaders for their silence over the alleged scam in the Centrally sponsored AMRUT scheme, BRS working president KT Rama Rao suggested that they are hand in glove with Telangana Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy.

Rao went public with the allegation that the firm owned by the chief minister’s brother-in-law was given the tenders despite not meeting the eligibility criteria.

Taking to the microblogging platform X, Rao, who is popularly known as KTR, wrote: “Been getting congratulatory messages from senior Congress leaders on exposing Revanth Reddy’s scam in Amrut tenders. But stunning and deafening is the silence of Telangana BJP leaders. Ajab prem ki ghazab kahani hain yeh RR (Revanth Reddy) aur BJP ki.”

This is not the first time KTR targeted the BJP for allegedly going soft on the chief minister. In the past, he insinuated that the chief minister, who was once associated with the BJP’s student wing, ABVP, would eventually join the saffron party while Reddy in turn has linked Kavitha’s bail to an understanding between the BRS and the BJP.

Earlier in the day, the Telangana Police detained members of a fact-finding team of the BRS while on its way to Gandhi Hospital to probe maternal and infant mortality in the state government-run hospital. KTR had alleged that 48 infants and 14 mothers lost their lives in the hospital in August which promptly contradicted his statement.

Rao had announced that they would send a fact-finding team to the hospital. But this morning, some of the BRS leaders were detained at their residences while MLA Dr Kalvakuntla Sanjay and former MLA Dr Metuku Anand, who managed to reach the hospital, were arrested by the police before their visit.

This prompted an outburst from KTR, who blamed the chief minister for the police high-handedness as he handles both home and municipal administration and urban development departments.

“This must be a first! Arresting members of a fact-finding committee? What exactly is this government scared of? The truth coming out? Their gross inefficiencies being exposed? If there’s nothing to hide as I requested yesterday, let the BRS fact finding committee investigate! The report will only improve public health and expose the rot in the system. But your ego Mr cheap (read chief) minister is single-handedly destroying Telangana. Stop playing with people’s lives!”