The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Hyderabad News : ORR `land scam' raises political storm

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Sep 26, 2006
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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

ORR `land scam' raises political storm

Special Correspondent

TDP, TRS, CPI(M) threaten agitations

HYDERABAD: The alleged land scandal in the Outer Ring Road (ORR) project raised a political storm on Monday with the TDP, the TRS and the CPI(M) threatening to launch agitations if the Government failed to come clean on the issue.

While the decided to move the High Court seeking justice to the poor who had been deprived of land, the TRS went a step ahead and resolved to submit a memorandum to the Governor seeking the dismissal of Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy. Activists of the CPI(M) burnt the effigy of `land sharks.'

At a press conference, TDP leaders — Kodela Sivaprasada Rao and K. Vijayarama Rao — said the party had been forced to seek legal recourse as all other methods to get justice had failed.K. Chandrasekhar Rao, TRS president, asked Dr. Reddy to step down before the axe fell on him. There was clear evidence to prove the involvement of Dr. Reddy, his Cabinet colleagues — Ponnala Lakshmaiah and J.C. Diwakar Reddy — and his brother Y.S. Vivekananda Reddy. The TRS would organise rasta roko in Telangana districts on Tuesday, he said.

White paper sought

The CPI(M) State Committee demanded a comprehensive judicial probe into the episode and wanted the Government to release a white paper with details of the owners of land abutting the project.

Meanwhile, the Government and the Andhra Pradesh Congress Committee (APCC) have denied the report published in a vernacular daily on the alleged land scandal.

The report was yet another attempt to discredit the Chief Minister at the instance of some "anti-Congress elements," said Minister D. Prasada Rao and Mr. Lakshmaiah and HUDA Chairman D. Sudhir Reddy while APCC president K. Keshava Rao said the reports were based on affidavits prepared by the TDP.

At a press conference on Monday, the Ministers said the names cited as being the "forces and beneficiaries" behind the realignment were "false and imaginary." The management was doing this as it had lost three acres under the project and the report was published on the day when the TDP filed a case in the High Court, thus indicating a "nexus." Mr. Lakshmaiah whose name figured in the report claimed that he would consult his family before deciding to file any defamation case against the paper. In a letter to the daily's management, Congress legislator K. Venkat Reddy threatened to move the court if the management did not tender a public apology.

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