Interview |‘UPA or NDA, budgets have been nothing but a mirage of promises for Telangana’: KTR

Budget 2026: As Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman prepares to present the Union Budget 2026 this Sunday, expectations are high across states over allocations, reforms, and the Centre’s commitment to cooperative federalism.

Telangana, in particular, has repeatedly raised concerns over what it calls continued neglect in successive budgets, despite being one of India’s fastest-growing states now ruled by the Congress party.

In an interview with LiveMint, BRS working president KT Rama Rao (KTR) outlines the party’s demands for Budget 2026, ranging from pending commitments under the AP Reorganisation Act to GST compensation, rural employment funding, and middle-class tax relief.

KTR, former IT Minister of Telangana, also shares how promises paraded like festivals, but outcomes were abandoned like ruins for Telangana in budgets during the UPA and NDA governments. Edited excerpts from the email interview:

Q. What are your expectations from Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s budget?

A. A national budget is the mirror of the union government’s philosophy.

Our expectation from the Hon’ble Finance Minister is that Telangana be seen not as a marginal footnote in the Union’s narrative, but as a cornerstone of India’s economic architecture.

Despite being the fastest-growing state under the BRS regime for over a decade, Telangana has been consistently handed a ‘big zero’ in Union Budgets. The promises of the AP Reorganisation Act, from national status for the Palamuru- Rangareddy project to the steel plant at Bayyaram and beyond, remain unfulfilled. These are not favours we seek; they are constitutional obligations.

Q. How do you want the Budget to be? Will this Budget strengthen Telangana's growth story?

A. If the NDA government truly wishes to strengthen India’s growth story, it must rise above selective federalism. To sideline Telangana is to dim a flame that has already lit the path of India’s progress. Will this Budget strengthen our growth story? The answer depends on whether the Centre chooses vision over vote bank, fairness over favouritism.

If NDA continues to treat the Budget as a campaign brochure for election-bound states, it will remain another exercise in political arithmetic. But if it embraces the spirit of cooperative federalism, it can elevate not just Telangana, but the entire nation.

Q. How have NDA budgets been different from the Congress-led Centre’s economic approach for Telangana?

A. When we analyse the Union Budgets of both the UPA and NDA, one truth emerges with clarity. Whether painted beneath the lotus or balanced on the hand of deception, the mirage has remained constant.

Promises paraded like festivals, but outcomes were abandoned like ruins. The Congress-led budgets lacked the vision and urgency that could have propelled India into the league of nations that achieved economic miracles in the last few decades. Their allocations shimmered in rhetoric but collapsed in execution, leaving India trailing where it should have been leading.

The NDA, on the other hand, has perfected the art of distorted federalism, deliberately sidelining performing states like Telangana, while showering favours on politically expedient regions. In both cases, the will of the people has been diminished to footnotes in the calculus of convenience.

Q. What is the single biggest reform that should be in the Budget and will define Telangana’s economy over the next five years?

A. The single most transformative reform India must embrace today is a massive and unprecedented surge of investment, an infrastructure push for speed, scale, and vision, roaring like the engines of a new industrial revolution. Never before in the history of independent India has such urgency been required. It is the very foundation upon which the nation’s future skyscrapers of prosperity will rise.

Q. How about the VB-GRAM Rozgar scheme funding pattern? Do you demand any reversal? Why is that so?

A. The VB-GRAM Rozgar scheme, in its current funding pattern, is nothing short of a betrayal of federal fairness. By shifting the burden of wages and materials onto the states, the Centre has turned what should have been a guarantee for the poorest into a gamble on state finances. We demand a reversal because rural employment cannot be left to the mercy of uneven state budgets.

Q. Taxation has been an issue with the middle class. How would you want the FM to handle this?

A: The middle class is India’s Atlas, carrying the weight of the economy on its shoulders, yet never asking for applause. Every tax they pay is a brick laid in the nation’s foundation, every sacrifice a spark that keeps the machinery of progress alive. Without their discipline and resilience, the Republic would be a body without a spine.

Yet year after year, they carry the burden of stagnant exemptions, rising indirect taxes, and shrinking deductions, even as their role in nation-building grows. The upcoming Union Budget must respond with empathy and imagination: widen tax slabs to keep pace with inflation, restore meaningful deductions for housing, healthcare, and savings, and simplify compliance so that salaried families are not trapped in a maze of paperwork.

Q. What are your thoughts on budgetary support for pending commitments under the AP Reorganisation Act?

A. Budgetary support for pending obligations – whether national status for our irrigation project or other commitments- is not optional generosity. It is a constitutional responsibility the Centre is bound to fulfil.

When the Centre delays, it is not just denying funds, it is denying trust. Telangana has waited with dignity and persistence. The then Chief Minister, KCR Garu, personally met and wrote to the Prime Minister, urging action on these pending obligations. I, too, have met several central ministers, and our BRS MPs have consistently reminded them of their constitutional duty. But till today, even the most basic issues like water share allocations have not been settled.

Our demand is straightforward: fulfil the commitments, release the allocations, and honour the word given to the people of Telangana. Without this, the Reorganisation Act is reduced to a broken contract. Why is Telangana consistently ignored? We deserve justice, and the Union Budget must finally deliver it.

Q. And what about extension of GST compensation to help states manage upcoming tax reforms?

A. GST compensation is not a question of political fortunes; it is a question of federal stability and people’s dignity. When GST was rolled out, states surrendered a significant measure of fiscal autonomy in good faith, on the assurance that the Union would stand by them during the transition. That assurance was not a political favour; it was a binding pledge.

To withdraw compensation now, while reforms are still maturing, is to break that bond and weaken the very foundation of cooperative federalism. Telangana, like many states, has borne the brunt of structural changes in taxation. Our revenues have been compressed, yet our obligations - to farmers, to workers, to welfare schemes remain constant.

The denial of compensation is not a blow to a ruling party; it is a blow to the society itself. It is like expecting a lamp to burn without oil. The people of Telangana deserve better than fiscal neglect dressed up as reform.