Telangana MLAs likened to fabled parrot

HYDERABAD: The assembly witnessed a fiery verbal duel between TRS legislator T Harish Rao and Congress members during the debate on no-confidence motion moved by his party against the Kiran Kumar Reddy government.
While targeting the Congress MLAs from Telangana, Harish Rao said, "The Telangana Congress MLAs remain mute spectators even when the Centre has hung sword on their heads.They must speak up or else they would be politically killed like the parrot that lost its life because it did not speak up at the critical juncture although it could speak."
Enraged by this comparison, D Sridhar Babu, minister for parliamentary affairs, shot back: "No Congress MLA is a parrot and no one has dangled swords on our heads. The Telangana issue has not been patented by the TRS. Belittling the Telangana legislators is like insulting the people of the region who have elected them."
Earlier, labour minister Danam Nagender had to intervene and clarify when Harish Rao complained of discrimination meted out to the families from Telangana in terms of ex gratia payment. "When a worker in Singareni Collieries dies, his family gets Rs 5 lakh as ex gratia, but the financial aid given to the family of a worker in Visakhapattanam Steels for his untimely death is Rs 20 lakh. Why this discrimination?"
Nagender intervened and said the ex gratia amount was dependent on the net worth and revenue earnings of the particular industrial unit and that there was no regional disparity.