BRS leader T Harish Rao
He also demanded that the govt issue a white paper on all prohibited properties. Hyderabad: Dismissing the allegations levelled by chief minister A Revanth Reddy over lands belonging to various BRS leaders, including former chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao, his family members and others, former minister T Harish Rao on Wednesday asked the state govt to order a probe by a sitting Supreme Court judge into the 22A issue and alleged irregularities under the Dharani and Bhu Bharati land portals.
He alleged that the CM’s family members owned around 308 acres lands in Kotra village in Veldanda mandal, Kondapreddypalle and Malkapuram village near Choutuppal, but only few of these properties were mentioned in the election affidavits. On his brother’s land, he said his brother was an NRI who had been living in the US for 30 years and had legally purchased shares in a poultry farm by making payment in white. “Revanth Reddy himself admitted that the extent of land on prohibited list had increased from around 3.71 lakh acres to nearly 30 lakh acres. The CM, however, says officials uploaded nearly 30 lakh acres. Harish said the CM had also admitted that old lists dating back to 1999 were uploaded and that even lands sold by HMDA and ULC were included in the prohibited list. He demanded that properties wrongly included in the 22-A list should be removed immediately. Harish alleged that more than 9,200 land registrations under Bhu Bharati had taken place without the knowledge of the actual owners.
Addressing the media at Telangana Bhavan, Harish said that instead of answering questions on people’s problems and the implementation of six guarantees, the state govt had resorted to “diversion politics”. “Revanth Reddy has all these years been claiming that KCR owns 1,000 acres of farmhouse land, but now, in the assembly, he admitted that the farmhouse is spread over 67 acres,” Harish said. “It is neither assigned land nor an illegal transfer,” the BRS deputy leader said. He must explain how so many families were affected,” he said. Revenue minister Ponguleti Srinivas Reddy says that not even a single acre was newly added to the prohibited list after Congress came to power. “If this happened under your govt, the CM must apologise to the people and explain when the problem will be resolved,” he said. The law must be the same for a common citizen and the CM,” Harish said. He said merely announcing committees and guidelines would not solve the problem. The govt must remove wrongly included properties without conditions and without forcing people to run around govt offices, he said.
“When we raise people’s problems and question the govt on the six guarantees, the CM resorts to personal attacks and diversion politics. How long will he keep blaming the BRS?,” Harish asked. He questioned the CM’s claim that collectors had uploaded old lists without proper verification. “If officials made mistakes, why was action not taken against them? Which statement is true?” he asked. He cited the case of a woman undergoing cancer treatment in Gajwel, alleging that her land was transferred without her knowledge. “If the CM’s own property could be removed from the prohibited list overnight, the same should be done for ordinary people’s properties.