US leg denied, Gujarat flies
MEA cleared Revanth Reddy’s UK stop but blocked his US tour as “not appropriate to the office or purpose.” Gujarat’s BJP Chief Minister toured the US-Canada the same week. Telangana calls it discrimination; the BJP throws procedural mud without documents.
The MEA has not specified why the two travel programmes received different treatment.
The BJP-led Centre okayed Telangana Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy’s UK visit and blocked his US leg, saying the American programme wasn’t “appropriate to the office held and the purpose of the visit,” per MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal on 21 August. No specifics were offered on what, exactly, failed that test.
Reddy’s stated US itinerary — Harvard, MIT, Northeastern, Virginia Tech and a New York “Meet and Greet” hosted by Indian Overseas Congress between 24–30 August — was widely flagged in advance. He called the denial “an insult to Telangana” and “obstruction to the State’s development,” arguing the Centre could have sought clarifications instead of slicing the trip in half. That contrast got louder next door: the BJP’s Bhupendra Patel spent roughly 17–24 August across the US and Canada pitching Vibrant Gujarat 2027.
The BJP reply in Telangana has been long on accusation and short on paper. MLA Palvai Harish Babu claimed Reddy “did not properly furnish the details” and cited “different sources” to allege poor intimation for meetings — but produced no application, no MEA note, and no named official to back it. The MEA, for its part, has not said the file was incomplete, only that the US programme was judged inappropriate; it hasn’t named which event or meeting tripped the wire, or why the same investment-and-institutions brief passed in London but failed in the US.
So we’re left with a BJP-led Centre that found Telangana’s US plan unsuitable while waving through a BJP CM’s investor roadshow in the same window, and a BJP MLA asking everyone to take “different sources” on faith. The MEA can end the guesswork by stating what, precisely, was wrong; until then, it looks like one state’s pitch met a higher bar when it wasn’t Gujarat’s.