Excavators being used by the Telangana Government to clear the debris of the deforestation after the Supreme Court halted the felling of trees in 400 acres of forested land in the Kancha Gachibowli area, in Hyderabad, on April 4, 2025.
| Photo Credit: PTI
The Telangana Congress condemned Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s remarks on the Kancha Gachibowli land issue, accusing the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of spreading misinformation and displaying double standards on environmental and development matters.
The Congress stated that the PM had been completely misled by BJP State unit president and Union Minister G. Kishan Reddy on the subject.
Also read | SC to hear matter related to tree felling in Hyderabad’s Kancha Gachibowli forest on April 16
PM Modi criticised the Telangana government on Monday (April 14, 2025) for allegedly forgetting its promises and harming forests and wildlife with bulldozers. Speaking in Haryana’s Yamunanagar, the Prime Minister urged the people to know the difference between two governance models, referencing the Kancha Gachibowli land controversy.
In a detailed statement issued in Hyderabad on Monday, the Congress said the BJP’s allegations against the State government were baseless and ignored the BJP’s own poor environmental track record. It cited the construction of five academic buildings on the University of Hyderabad (UoH)) campus in 2023, inaugurated by Prime Minister Modi, which reportedly led to the loss of thousands of mature trees without evidence of compensatory afforestation steps.
The party alleged that the BJP-led Centre, through the Union Ministry of Human Resource Development, had facilitated the clearance of green cover on the UoH campus, prioritising political optics over ecological concerns.
Criticising the BJP’s environmental record, the Congress pointed to data indicating the cutting of over one crore trees between 2014 and 2019, and an additional 23 lakh trees from 2020 to 2022 for infrastructure projects such as highways, ports, and airports. It further accused the BJP of granting special permissions to the then K. Chandrasekhar Rao led Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) to take over 33,251.18 acres of forest land for various developmental projects.
Also read | Modi should introspect his comments on Kancha Gachibowli lands: Mahesh Goud
The party also highlighted policy changes, including the 2023 amendments to the Forest Conservation Act and the streamlining of the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) process.
“Despite environmentalists expressing concerns about deforestation across the country, Prime Minister Modi-led Central government has always been prioritizing development over environmental sustainability. Although the whole nation knows that the loss of mature trees is irrevocable, it is PM Modi government’s adamant attitude and zero respect for environment and lung space for people that led to massive deforestation by Centre as well as BJP-ruled states over and over again since 2014,” say the statement. These changes, the Congress claimed, also contributed to human-wildlife conflict.
The Congress party claimed that BJP government has bulldozed forests in the name of development. Over 3 lakh hectares of forests cleared since 2014, and 99% of forest clearance applications approved without rejections.
Calling for accountability, the Congress appealed to the public and media to question the BJP’s stance on environmental and development issues and accused it of prioritising political mileage over sustainable development.
Published – April 15, 2025 10:54 am IST
