Kaleshwaram row intensifies as Congress, BRS trade charges over lifting floodwaters amid dry spell

The Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Scheme (KLIS) remained at the centre of Telangana’s political discourse through out the previous week and on Monday (July 13, 2026), with the ruling Congress and the Opposition Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) stepping up their campaign over the utilisation of Godavari waters amid a prolonged dry spell.

Both the BRS and the Congress organised two different events blaming each other over the non-utilisation of water at Kaleshwaram Scheme despite water being available in abundance. The BRS chose a blood donation camp while the Congress countered it with a powerpoint presentation on how crores went down the drain damaging the key barrage of the entire project.

BRS’s stance

It all started with the BRS adopting an aggressive posture by taking its leaders to the Medigadda barrage, arguing that lakhs of cusecs of floodwater in the Godavari were flowing into the sea even as several parts of the State were facing drought-like conditions due to poor monsoon rainfall. The party maintained that the government had failed to utilise the available floodwaters for irrigation.

Seeking to counter the Opposition’s claims, Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy addressed a press conference to explain the technical constraints in operating the Kaleshwaram project. He said water could not simply be lifted while it was flowing and had to be impounded first at Medigadda before being pumped through the Kannepalli pump house and across the three barrages to the Yellampalli reservoir.

The Chief Minister contended that storing water at Medigadda was presently not feasible as the Medigadda and Sundilla barrages had developed structural defects, including cracks, making storage unsafe. This was the same view of the National Dam Safety Authority (NDSA). He reiterated that the damage to the barrages had rendered a project built at a cost of nearly ₹1 lakh crore incapable of serving its intended purpose.

During the interaction, Mr. Revanth Reddy in a strongly worded remark said the blood of BRS president K. Chandrashekar Rao and former Irrigation Minister T. Harish Rao “should be drawn and sprayed on the drying crops”, alleging that farmers were suffering because of the damage caused to the barrages during the previous regime.

The BRS chose a symbolic response rather than engaging solely on the technical issues raised by the government. The party organised a blood donation camp at its headquarters in Hyderabad, saying the donated blood would be sent to the Chief Minister in response to his remarks.

The Congress, in turn, mounted its own counter-offensive. Congress MLC Venkat Balmoor made a PowerPoint presentation at Gandhi Bhavan in the city using photographs and other material to argue that the damage to the barrages had occurred during the BRS government’s tenure. He accused the BRS leadership of attempting to exploit public sentiment over water instead of accepting responsibility for the project’s present condition.

Even as the political exchanges intensified, the central technical disagreement remained unresolved. While the Congress government maintains that water must first be stored at Medigadda before it can be lifted through the Kannepalli pump house towards Yellampalli, Mr. Harish Rao insists that floodwaters can be pumped even while they are flowing, without the need for significant impoundment.