Irrigation Minister N. Uttam Kumar Reddy termed Harish Rao’s presentation on the Kaleshwaram project as untruthful and misleading on facts and figures - only to save the party’s skin in the project’s fiasco.

In a counter to Mr. Rao’s claims, he questioned how the project, which lifted only 162 TMC of water in five years, of which 63 TMC was let out into the sea, could possibly irrigate the claimed 22 lakh acres.