WARANGAL/KARIMNAGAR: With the aim of forming the government for a third consecutive time, the BRS government has introduced three schemes Dalit Bandhu, BC Bandhu, and Gruha Lakshmi. But the same schemes are haunting the ruling party MLAs with people staging protests against the irregularities in their implementation in the erstwhile Warangal and Karimnagar districts.
The BRS government decided to sanction Dalit Bandhu to 300 beneficiaries in each Assembly constituency. However, there are allegations against its MLAs that they were selecting their party activists and supporters as the beneficiaries and not the genuine applicants.
Sripelli Sudhakara Chary, a carpenter and a resident of Hanamkonda, told Deccan Chronicle that he had applied for BC Bandhu and visited MLA’s office several times urging for the inclusion of his name to get the benefit, but to no avail. When asked, BRS leaders told him that his name would be shortlisted and that too after the elections, he said.
Around 60,000 people in the erstwhile Warangal district and 40,000 in the erstwhile Karimnagar applied for the scheme.
The applicants alleged that BRS MLAs were referring 50 to 100 of their supporters from each village for the scheme and the shortlists were being prepared accordingly. In some villages, sarpanchs also applied for the scheme, they added.
The government has decided to sanction Dalit Bandhu to 100 beneficiaries in each Assembly segment in the first phase and 1,100 in each segment in the second phase. But, applicants allege that only BRS activists were being benefited from the scheme.
Demanding fair implementation of the scheme, members of the SC community of Mallapur mandal in Jagtial district held a rasta roko in a protest against the government alleging 14 persons out of a few hundred applicants got Dalit Bandhu benefit by the irregularities by the BRS public representatives.
Congress leader Sammeta Mahendar Goud alleged that Wardhannapet BRS MLA Aroori Ramesh was inducting members of Dalit communities into the party fold by luring them with the sanction of Dalit Bandhu.
BSP state chief R.S. Praveen Kumar, at a meeting in Peddapalli held by party leader Dasari Usha, accused the BRS government of playing vote bank politics with populist schemes in order to win the elections.
Meanwhile, BRS MLAs were worried a lot over the allegations and irregularities in the implementation of Dalit Bandhu, BC Bandhu, and Gruha Lakshmi and fear that instead of getting mileage, the schemes may prove costly to them in the upcoming elections.
