Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy flatly rejected Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan’s allegations on his decision and questioned his claims on governance, poverty alleviation and transparency in his state. Moreover, Mr Reddy, while speaking to a news agency during his campaign in Kerala, alleged that Mr Vijayan was being ‘saved’ by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the Sabarimala gold theft case. Claiming that Mr Modi was acting as Mr Vijayan’s godfather in New Delhi, Mr Reddy questioned why no action was taken against the Kerala Chief Minister.
In his reply to Mr Vijayan’s letter on Tuesday (April 7), Mr Reddy has objected to Mr Vijayan’s reliance on NITI Aayog’s SDG India Index 2023-24 to assess Telangana’s performance and claimed the report reflects the ‘end-of-the-year’ of almost a decade of BRS-BJP misgovernance, ending in December 2023.
Saying that his government has completed 28 months in office and should be judged on its record, Mr. Revanth Reddy claimed that Telangana’s Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) stood at Rs 16.12 lakh crore in 2024-25, registering a growth rate of 10.7%, higher than the national average of 9.9%.
“Our (Telangana) per capita income has reached ₹3.87 lakh, which is the highest among major states according to the RBI’s Statistics Handbook 2024-25, ahead of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra and Kerala,” he said.
Responding to Mr Vijayan’s claim that Kerala is set to become the first state to eliminate extreme poverty by the end of 2025, Mr Revanth Reddy questioned whether the claim was independently verified. Referring to the mention in Mr Vijayan’s letter that more than 64,000 families were still receiving micro schemes, he asked whether extreme poverty had actually been eliminated. In his letter, the Chief Minister of Telangana also raised questions on corruption including the Sabarimala case of Kerala.
Outlining his government’s development agenda in Telangana, Mr Revanth Reddy said they were working towards becoming a $1 trillion economy within a decade, which included projects like the proposed Future City near Hyderabad and the National Industrial Corridor in Zaheerabad. He expressed confidence that the people of Kerala will take a thoughtful decision about their future, as they did in Telangana.
published – April 07, 2026 07:27 PM IST