K Kavitha interview: ‘Congress lacks credibility… it has never lived up to its promises, has always stood for dhokha’

In its manifesto, the Congress seems to have challenged the BRS, welfare scheme for welfare scheme. How does the BRS stand out?

Imitation can never be the original. Nobody can imitate Picasso. Pioneers always have the first movers’ advantage, BRS does too. These schemes are our leader’s brainchild. Nobody had the slightest idea on how to incentivise farmers. Our Rythu Bandhu revolutionised the country’s thinking on how governments can make agriculture sustainable. The rest of the country followed us, starting with Odisha’s KALIA programme, and then the PM’s Kisan Samman scheme.

We have walked the talk and implemented all that we have promised. The credibility factor comes in here, which the Congress lacks. We have tremendous goodwill.

What about anti-incumbency against the BRS after 10 years in power? You have dropped only 10 sitting MLAs.

It is the strength of our government and its leader. We have done brilliant work with this team and felt no need to drop MLAs. We have implemented most of our flagship programmes without any corruption. Changing a team reflects a party’s low confidence.

The Indian Express reported on Telangana’s sweeping use of preventive detention law. As per the 2021 NCRB data, it stands second in the number of detainees. The Opposition accuses you of crushing dissent.

We did not use the law to arrest journalists writing or tweeting against the CM. There may have been an incident here or there but we do not use it to target the Opposition as the Centre does. The bulk of those arrested are those selling fake seeds to farmers. There were suicides by many cotton farmers who bought these seeds.

The Rs 10-lakh Dalita Bandhu scheme was rolled out to a few Dalit families per constituency, based on MLAs’ discretion. There are allegations of MLAs taking cuts.

So far, we have only rolled out a prototype for testing. In the beginning, we gave only 100 beneficiaries per Assembly constituency. Then we increased it to 300. We were trying to understand the businesses Dalit families could start with this money and the kind of training they would need.

It is a flexible scheme. A family can decide what it wants to do with the money. The district magistrate works with them to train them on entrepreneurial schemes and marketing. It is a huge amount, so we are also concerned about corruption. Again, there can be one or two issues but we endeavour to iron these out in the long run as we scale up the scheme.

The Opposition alleges corruption in Mission Bhageeratha, Kaleshwaram, and talks of your role in the Delhi liquor scam.

If there was corruption in Telangana, we would not have been able to connect every household with a tap and potable drinking water today or construct the world’s largest lift irrigation project — Kaleshwaram — that provides water to 73 lakh acres. Money has been spent on last-mile efforts.

What about the liquor scam?

I had no role in it. They have made sweeping allegations and put the burden of proof on me … But we are fighting it. We are talking about state excesses and the misuse of agencies.

The BJP has reached out to Dalits by promising their sub-categorisation in the state.

This is the joke of the century. The BJP’s DNA is against Dalits. Since our first Assembly session in 2014, we have been demanding Dalit sub-categorisation. If they were sincere, they would implement it. It is like a post-dated cheque like they tried to do with the Women’s Reservation Bill. In fact, the Madiga community is now angrier. They are not going to get any political advantage out of it.

There are pockets such as Khammam (10 seats) and Nalgonda (12 seats) that are considered Congress strongholds, where it could make further inroads.

The psyche of the Telangana people is that the Congress has never lived up to its promises, it has always stood for dhokha, the same as during the formation of Telangana. They are not going to gain substantial seats as they are claiming.