Hours after former minister Eatala Rajender criticising Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao on the issue of Masaipet lands, Congress MP from Malkajigiri and Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) working president A. Revanth joined the issue and demanded a CBI probe into the encroachment of Endowments lands at Devarayamjal.
“Instead of singling out Mr. Rajender, a comrade-in-arms of the TRS leadership for long, the government should institute a common probe into the issue of lands at Devarayamjal where Mr. Chandrasekhar Rao’s family, including his son and Minister K.T. Rama Rao, chairman and managing director of a newspaper owned by the ruling party D. Damodar Rao, Minister C. Malla Reddy and several other TRS leaders have lands in the survey numbers in dispute or those believed to be belonging to the Seetharamaswamy temple there,” the Congress leader said.
However, since most of the TRS leaders, including the newspaper owned by the ruling party, which he said is printed in the lands in question, have mortgaged the lands with banks and borrowed huge amounts for their businesses the matter had gone beyond the State’s purview. As deceiving banks was a crime to be dealt by Central agencies, the issue was a fit case to be handed over to CBI, Mr. Revanth Reddy said speaking to newspersons on Monday. He furnished details of the land holdings of the TRS leaders in this particular parcel to buttress his claim.
Mr. Revanth Reddy said he would write in his capacity as an MP to Union Home Minister Amit Shah requesting him to order a probe into the alleged encroachments of Endowments lands by the ruling party leaders in Telangana along with documentary evidence. “As I am not a position to visit Delhi personally for the purpose due to the COVID conditions, I will meet Minister of State for Home G. Kishan Reddy here in a couple of days and seek a CBI probe into the lands issue.”
Explaining that a total of 1,531 acres of Endowments lands belonging to the temple were encroached upon at Devarayamjal, the Congress MP said Mr. Taraka Rama Rao had purchased the land in 2009 while Mr. Damodar Rao did in 2015 in survey number 437. Similarly, Minister Mr. Malla Reddy has a farmhouse on 7 acres land in survey number 658.
However, to cover-up the shady land deals the government had taken out all land records pertaining to the erstwhile Rangareddy district out of the public domain (website) although the records of all other district were available, Mr. Revanth Reddy alleged. TRS leaders Keshava Reddy, Veera Reddy, Sudhakar Reddy, Rajasekhar Reddy and several others too have lands there.
As the government itself was stating the value of land (30 acres) in Mr. Rajender’s possession was worth ₹1,000 crore it should also reveal the value of lands held by other leaders of the party, including KTR and Mr. Malla Reddy. (Earlier, Mr. Rajender said his family owned 6.2 acres land there since 1995). He also asked the State leadership of BJP to demand for a CBI probe into the lands issue if it was not colluding with TRS leadership.