When Bharat Rashtra Samithi led by former chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao was in power, he used to make serious comments against the Narendra Modi government in the Centre.
KCR and his son; BRS working president; K T Rama Rao were making serious allegations against the Centre saying it was discriminating against Telangana in the devolution of funds and was violating the spirit of cooperative federalism.
They were adopting a hostile approach towards New Delhi, so much so that whenever Modi came to Hyderabad, KCR avoided meeting him, without bothering to follow the minimum protocol. He also had a confrontation with the then governor Tamilisai Soundararajan.
Compared to KCR and KTR, present chief minister A Revanth Reddy is not so aggressive.
Though he, too, criticises the Centre, he has been maintaining good functional relations with Modi and the other Union ministers.
On Wednesday, too, Revanth went to Delhi and met Modi to invite him to the Telangana Rising Global Summit.
Yet, the Centre has not been helping the Revanth government with adequate funds, just because Telangana is under Congress rule.
The state has been receiving reduced allocations from the Centre, despite having two Union ministers and eight MPs for the BJP.
The latest data tabled in the Lok Sabha; through a written reply from the Minister of State for Finance to a question raised by BJP MP Dharmapuri Arvind; reveals significant shifts in the ratio between taxes collected from Telangana and funds devolved to the state, during the present Congress regime.
In fact, the devolution of Central funds was more during the BRS regime than now. During 2019-20, the central tax collected from Telangana was Rs 34,388 crore, while the Centre released Rs 48,873 crore. In 2020-21, the state contribution to the Centre was Rs 35,243 crore, while the central devolutions were Rs 60,590 crore.
During 2021-22, the state contribution to the Centre was Rs 51,353 crore, while Central devolutions to the state was Rs 62,562 crore; and in 2022-23, the state contributed Rs 63,908 crore, while the Centre gave back Rs 70,068 crore.
However, things changed after the Congress came to power in Telangana in 2023. During 2023-24, the state’s contribution to the Central kitty was Rs 1,17,820 crore, while the Centre gave back only Rs 67,786 crore; and in 2024-25, the state contribution was Rs 1,33,208 crore, while the Central devolution to the state was Rs 66,295 crore.
Sources say the BJP-ruled states continue to receive more supportive allocations when compared to opposition-ruled states.
“It was obvious that the Modi government had a soft corner towards KCR than Revanth Reddy, just because the latter is heading the Congress government,” an analyst said.