It’s disrespectful to people of Telangana, Chief Minister Revanth Reddy said on Monday after he was forced to return to India as the Centre denied permission to his proposed trip to the US.
“What is the political angle – Modi is BJP, Revanth Reddy is Congress, Modi is Gujarat, Revanth is Telangana, is this the ‘political angle’ which they mentioned while denying the permission? It is totally against federal Cooperatism.
The Congress Chief Minister also said the decision was against the principles of cooperative federalism, and cited the example of the Prime Minister and other Chief Ministers, including the Gujarat Chief Minister, who have visited the US. Gujarat is conspiring against Telangana, I condemn it,” he said.
Earlier reporting noted: Reddy had cancelled the US leg of his two-nation visit on Friday after the Union government denied him clearance. He was in the UK at the time and was scheduled to return to Hyderabad from London on Sunday. “Let me say that the visits of chief ministers, as indeed those of other dignitaries, are assessed by the Ministry of External Affairs in order to accord political clearance. The programme proposed in such cases should be appropriate to the office held and the purpose of the visit. In this particular case, that was not so with respect to the United States. “We had informed the MEA about the visit. The CMO had informed the MEA about the purpose of the visit. The objective was to promote Telangana as a sports and investment hub and bring world-class universities to the state.
Because the programmes scheduled there were not appropriate to the office he held and the stated purpose of the visit, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) had said earlier, the Central government, though clearing the UK trip, declined political clearance to Chief Minister Revanth Reddy’s visit to the US. Therefore, the clearance was denied and not given.
Reddy said Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge and party leader Rahul Gandhi would raise the issue of denying him permission to visit US in Parliament. Incidentally, let me also tell you that clearance was given for his visit to the United Kingdom,” the Ministry spokesperson had said last week. MEA examined the proposal and informed that, for political reason visit was declined,” the Chief Minister said Monday. Earlier reporting noted: ‘Insult to Telangana’: Revanth Reddy on Centre’s denial for US visit Telangana Chief Minister Revanth Reddy on Monday, in his first reaction after being denied political clearance for his planned US visit, called the decision an “insult to Telangana”. Earlier reporting noted: The External Affairs Ministry said Reddy’s proposed US visit did not meet the established norms for according political clearance.
