Hyderabad, May 28: As the mercury touched a blistering 46°C in eleven districts of Telangana on Tuesday, a new political storm is brewing between the ruling Congress party and the opposition Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS). With the state reeling under an unprecedented heatwave, the BRS has launched a scathing attack on the Congress government led by Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy, accusing it of “criminal negligence” in power supply management. The Congress, in turn, has hit back, blaming the previous BRS regime for leaving behind a “dilapidated” power infrastructure.
BRS Alleges ‘Power Cut Conspiracy’ in Ranga Reddy, Medchal
K. T. Rama Rao (KTR), the working president of BRS and former Minister for Municipal Administration, did not mince words during a press conference in Hyderabad. “In districts like Ranga Reddy, Medchal-Malkajgiri, and Vikarabad, families are living without electricity for four to six hours every day. This is not a technical fault; this is a deliberate act of punishing the people who voted against the Congress in the recent Lok Sabha elections,” KTR alleged.
KTR further claimed that the power demand in the state had crossed 15,000 MW, but the Congress government had failed to procure adequate power from the open market. “The previous BRS government ensured 24×7 free power to farmers and 24-hour supply to households. Today, the Congress is resorting to unscheduled load shedding under the garb of ‘peak demand management’,” he said, demanding an immediate White Paper on the state’s power purchase agreements.
Congress Hits Back: ‘BRS Left Us with Empty Coffers’
Responding swiftly, Telangana Congress spokesperson and former MLC, P. Venkata Reddy, dismissed the allegations as “BRS’s usual drama to distract from its own failures.” He stated that the current heatwave is a natural calamity that no state can fully insulate itself from. “The BRS government, under KCR, signed long-term power purchase agreements (PPAs) that were financially ruinous. They left the state’s discoms with debts of over Rs 70,000 crore. We are working overtime to stabilize the grid,” Venkata Reddy said.
He added that Energy Minister G. Jagadish Reddy has directed officials to ensure no area faces unscheduled cuts. “We have tied up 500 MW of additional power from central generating stations and are deploying mobile transformers to manage the load in critical areas. The BRS should stop politicizing a natural disaster,” he retorted.
Ground Reality: Hospitals, Villages Affected
According to the Telangana State Disaster Response and Fire Services Department, the districts of Nalgonda, Khammam, Warangal, Karimnagar, Adilabad, and Mahabubnagar recorded maximum temperatures between 44.6°C and 46.2°C. Government hospitals in Siddipet and Jangaon reported that the number of heatstroke patients has doubled in the last 48 hours.
In the rural pockets of the erstwhile Nizamabad district, farmers complained that irrigation pumpsets are not running due to low voltage. “We get power for only two hours daily. The tomato and chilli crops are drying up. We have no water, no power, and no support from the new government,” said a distraught farmer from Banswada mandal.
Congress Plans Relief Measures, But Politics Continues
CM Revanth Reddy has reportedly called for a high-level review meeting on Wednesday with officials from the Energy, Revenue, and Medical departments. The government is also releasing funds to supply buttermilk and ORS packets at bus stands and railway stations. However, the BRS has announced that it will hold a protest march from Nizam College to the Chief Minister’s office on June 2, demanding an apology from the Energy Minister for the “power fiasco.”
As temperatures soar, the political heat in Telangana is only getting hotter. Both parties are using the crisis as a weapon ahead of the upcoming local body elections, leaving the common man caught in the crossfire—seeking shade from the sun and relief from the politics.