New Delhi/Hyderabad, April 20 (IANS) A three-member team of Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) leaders is in Delhi to hold consultations with legal experts on the party’s next course of action in cases related to alleged irregularities in the Kaleshwaram project and the disqualification of BRS MLAs who allegedly defected to the Congress.
On the direction of former Telangana Chief Minister and BRS president K. Chandrasekhar Rao (KCR), the three-member team left for the national capital on Monday.
The team comprises BRS deputy leader in the Assembly and former minister T. Harish Rao, former MP Vinod Kumar, and Rajya Sabha member Vaddiraju Ravichandra.
They will meet senior Supreme Court lawyers to discuss the party’s strategy in the two key cases.
The Telangana High Court is set to pronounce its verdict on April 22 on a batch of writ petitions filed separately by KCR, Harish Rao, and two others, seeking directions to set aside and quash the report of the Justice P.C. Ghose Commission, which enquired into alleged irregularities in the execution of the Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Scheme.
KCR, Harish Rao, retired IAS officer and former Chief Secretary S.K. Joshi, and serving IAS officer Smitha Sabharwal had filed the petitions challenging the report.
After hearing arguments on the petitions, a Bench of Chief Justice Aparesh Kumar Singh and Justice G.M. Mohiuddin had last month reserved its orders. The verdict was initially scheduled to be pronounced on April 8 but was later adjourned to April 22.
The BRS team will also discuss with Supreme Court lawyers the possibility of approaching the apex court if the High Court dismisses the petitions filed by the party leaders.
The Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Scheme (KLIS), said to be the world’s largest multi-stage lift irrigation project, was launched by the then BRS government in May 2016. Its main component was inaugurated by the then Chief Minister KCR in 2019.
In March 2024, the Congress government constituted a commission headed by former Supreme Court judge Pinaki Chandra Ghose to probe the alleged irregularities in the planning, design, construction, quality control, operation, and maintenance of the Medigadda, Annaram, and Sundilla barrages of the Kaleshwaram project.
The commission submitted its report to the Telangana government on July 31, 2025.
The Commission held KCR directly and vicariously accountable for irregularities in the planning, execution, completion, operation, and maintenance of the Kaleshwaram project. It also indicted Harish Rao, then Chief Secretary Joshi, and then Secretary to the Chief Minister Smitha Sabharwal.
The BRS team’s Delhi visit also assumes significance in the wake of developments in the case relating to petitions seeking the disqualification of 10 BRS MLAs who had allegedly defected to the Congress in 2024.
BRS leaders have challenged in the High Court the order of the Telangana Assembly Speaker dismissing petitions seeking disqualification of the MLAs.
Last week, the High Court directed the MLAs to file their counters by May 6.
–IANS
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