HYDERABAD: Telangana Rashtra Samiti president K Chandrasekhar Rao strongly refuted allegations that he had interest in the Polavaram Indira Sagar Project and that in order to clinch the contract he had compromised the Telangana movement.Addressing a news conference here, the TRS chief sought to turn the tables on the Telugu Desam Party for making the allegation against him.“In fact, it was I who have demanded cancellation of the bids before any one did.I am opposed to Polavaram project in its present form. I demand that the Telugu Desam Party spell out its stand on Polavaram, whether it wants it or does not want it,” he said. Claiming that he knew tender process and how bids were filed, Chandrasekhar Rao said: “Just because a person who had invested in Namaste Telangana newspaper held three percent stake in a company whose financial bid was approved, one cannot jump to the conclusion that I have an interest in the bids.It is far-fetched and baseless.” “In my 35 years of political life, I have never bid for any works. It is, in fact, the TDP's culture of encouraging formation of syndicates to get works cheaply,” he alleged. Rao said he would never compromise Telangana movement whatever be the temptation. “The TDP has stooped to this level to sling mud on me because they were upset with the TDP MLAs joining the TRS. In fact, more TDP legislators would be joining the TRS soon,” he said. Questioning the rationale behind dubbing SEW, the company whose bids were declared as L1 for Polavaram works, as his benami company, he said, “The company was started about 55 years ago and I am now 54 years old. Does the TDP want people to believe that at the age of six months, I had a company on benami name?” Asked about a report on Polavaram that appeared in Namaste Telangana the day after the bids were finalised, KCR wanted to know what was wrong with it.“It is a major tender and what is wrong if the newspaper reported it?” he asked.He took exception to the TDP’s allegations that he had amassed Rs 50,000 crore wealth.“It is a fact that I had invested Rs 4 crore in Namaste Telangana and Rs 50 lakh in T News channel, but I had borrowed the money. It was not black money and had been cleared by the Income Tax department,” he said.
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