Even as the Modi government strongly opposed freebies by political parties, the Telangana Chief Minister and TRS President K Chandrashekar Rao has announced free power to farmers across the country if the non-BJP government elected to power in 2024 LS polls.
Addressing a public meeting at Nizamabad on Monday, he has pegged ₹1.45 lakh crore as the cost to implement the scheme.
Alleging that the aggregate NPAs stood at ₹12 lakh crore, he asked why the Government couldn’t offer free power.
Calling for a ‘BJP Mukhth’ Government at the Centre, he had alleged that the NDA Government was implementing anti-farmer policies.
The TRS leader, who has announced his national ambitions, is meeting Opposition-ruled States in the last few months to forge a national alliance against the BJP and Congress.
The TRS leader’s comment came in the wake of the Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s remarks that political parties should announce freebies only if they could afford such schemes.
The senior BJP leader, who was on a three-day visit to Telangana last week, referred to free power schemes and said that it was ultimately the discoms and gencos that bore the burden of such schemes.