The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : Temple land sale: TDP not scared of probe, says Naidu

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Jun 10, 2005

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

Temple land sale: TDP not scared of probe, says Naidu

Special Correspondent

HYDERABAD: The Telugu Desam Party (TDP) president, N. Chandrababu Naidu, on Thursday remarked that going by the speed with which the Government was disposing of Government, Endowment and Urban Land Ceiling lands, "there will be no land left by the time the Government leaves."

Addressing a press conference, Mr. Naidu said it was unfortunate that the Government instead of responding to the Opposition's charges was mounting a counter attack and ordering inquiry into all previous decisions. "We are not scared, let them go ahead. They will be exposing themselves."

He clarified that in the case of Tirupati, the TDP Government had made some exception as the encroachments were on private land. This was after the Congress and the Left parties led a huge agitation.

PCC chief clarifies

The Endowments lands sale controversy, which is being downplayed by both the PCC president, K. Keshava Rao, and the Endowments Minister, M. Satyanarayana Rao, saw the former producing copies of the press release sent by the latter at a press conference on Thursday to prove his innocence.

The press release of the Minister clarified that Dr. Rao had not written any letter, favouring sale of land to any one but only referred one farmer's case of Devarayamjal. It was a routine exercise, the Minister said in it. Dr. Keshava Rao, however, insisted that he did not need anyone's clean chit or a good conduct certificate in the matter. As a PCC president, he would be receiving hundreds of petitions every day, which he would then routinely pass on to the Government for examination.

Janashakti demand

Meanwhile, the State committee of CPI-ML (Janashakti) sought distribution of temple lands among dalits in the wake of the scandal. The State secretary of the party, Amar, in a press release stated that distribution of 3.5-lakh acres of temple lands was one of the demands of the naxal outfits during talks with the State Government.

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