Red light for Telangana, green for Gujarat
MEA blocks Revanth Reddy’s US leg citing an ‘inappropriate’ programme. A tentative Zohran Mamdani meet drew BJP heat. Telangana’s pitch to investors can wait; Delhi’s gatekeeping did not.
The Centre stopped Telangana’s proposed US investment visit while a comparable Gujarat roadshow proceeded.
The BJP-led Centre has denied political clearance for Telangana Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy’s US leg while okaying his UK visit, sending him back from London instead of onward to America. The Ministry of External Affairs’ line was tidy: a CM’s programme “must be appropriate to the office held and the purpose of the visit,” and this one was not, according to its assessment. That is the only on-record reason Delhi has offered so far.
What was on the table? According to Revanth, meetings with universities, sports institutions, businesses and “potential strategic partners” to pitch Telangana as a sports-and-education hub and roadshow the Telangana Rising Global Investors Summit due in December. He even showed reporters a Telangana government letter to MEA describing that purpose. “Mamdani is an elected leader; he is not an anti-social element,” he said of a possible New York stop, adding that Indian missions are supposed to facilitate such meetings.
The itinerary reportedly had a tentative meeting with New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani and, per other reports, a possible appointment with US Vice-President JD Vance. The MEA did not say those names in its explanation; BJP functionaries happily did, branding Mamdani “anti-India” and demanding to know Revanth’s “business” with him. Those are political claims, not evidence. The only settled fact is this: Telangana’s CM wasn’t allowed to make the US pitch he says he planned, and the BJP-led Centre says his programme didn’t fit the brief. Conveniently, Revanth points out, a similar investment roadshow by Gujarat’s chief minister met no such scruples — and the Centre has yet to explain why Telangana’s brief is different from Gujarat’s.