Telangana Government Unable To Control Drug Abuse, Says BJP

Hyderabad: The ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi or TRS has turned Telangana into a "den of drug abuse and peddling" by adopting an "open-gate" excise policy, state BJP Spokesperson Krishna Saagar Rao said. A special investigation team of the Prohibition and Excise Department had recently busted a drug racket in Hyderabad, and had summoned people from the Telugu film industry in connection with the cases.

"The brazen open-gate excise policy adopted by the TRS government has led to a natural rise in drug availability and supply to Telangana state as we firmly believe drugs are only an evolutionary phase of alcohol abuse," Mr Rao told PTI in Hyderabad.

Under the Happening Hyderabad programme, Information Technology Minister KT Rama Rao has promoted an environment which can drive drug abuse and peddling in the city, the BJP spokesperson said, adding his party "100 per cent" believes drug menace in the state took off steeply after the TRS government came to power.

KT Rama Rao is the son of Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao.

The Telangana government's Happening Hyderabad programme invites firms from India and abroad to organise events in the city "365 days a year", according to Telangana Tourism's website.

The BJP functionary said landlocked Hyderabad, unlike a coastal tourist destination as Goa, was not a favourite of party-goers. But music concerts in the name of Happening Hyderabad brought with them drug abusers and peddlers, Krishna Saagar Rao said.

"So, it multiplied the opportunity for supply and availability of drugs in the heart of the capital which was not so before," he said. The TRS government, which promised "Bangaru Telangana" (golden Telangana) has in fact made it "Udta Telangana", Krishna Saagar Rao said, alluding to the film Udta Punjab, which focuses on the drug issue in Punjab.

"The BJP is 100 per cent against this westernisation trend and culture promoted by KTR," he said. "We hold KTR responsible for promotion of western culture in Hyderabad... These rock concerts became touch points for very young people to get into drug abuse," the BJP spokesperson said.

Fifteen people, including US citizen Dundu Anish and others working with top companies, have been arrested in connection with the drug racket. Police said Dundu Anish was an engineer with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.