The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Hyderabad News : TDP president reverses decision

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Wednesday, Jul 25, 2007
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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

TDP president reverses decision

To attend Assembly following Chief Minister’s unconditional apology in the House

Photo: Satish.H

Staging protest: TDP Deputy Floor Leader and former Home Minister T. Devender Goud taken into custody by policemen in Hyderabad on Tuesday. He and other suspended TDP MLAs were protesting against a remark made by the CM.

HYDERABAD: Leader of the Opposition, N. Chandrababu Naidu, on Tuesday reversed his decision to stay away from the Assembly hours after the Chief Minister Y. S. Rajasekhara Reddy tendered an unconditional apology in the House for the remarks he made against the former.

Party sources said Mr. Naidu took the decision as the Chief Minister conceded two major demands of expressing regrets and sending an all-party delegation to Obulapuram. At a press conference earlier in the day, he announced his decision to abstain from the House for the rest of the monsoon session.

Produces documents

Mr. Naidu produced documents to support his charge that the Government went out of its way in favouring and granting iron ore mining lease over an area of 270 acres to the Obulapuram Mining Company (OMC) owned by G. Janardhan Reddy and Gimpex in Anantapur district. Three other applicants to the lease were eliminated.

A fresh notification was issued to debar them, much against a judgment of the Supreme Court and of the AP Mines and Mineral Development Rules.

One of them, Konda Reddy, son of Congress MLA Varadarujulu Reddy, too was not spared. All this was done as a topmost politician and his son had high stakes in OMC besides the brother-in-law of the managing director of the AP Mineral Development Corporation, he alleged.

The lease permits were granted to OMC at breakneck speed within three days from June 19 this year.

Mineral cess

He repeated his charge that OMC was resorting to large-scale illegal mining.

As against the value of iron ore mine worth Rs. 16, 715 crore allotted to OMC, the latter has to pay just about Rs. 60 crore as mineral cess. But even this was challenged by the latter.

The main Opposition could not ignore the fact that iron ore worth Rs. 51,000 crores was carted away by few private parties to other countries. Instead, the Government should have called for global tenders.

Meanwhile, about 40 Telugu Desam MPs, MLAs and MLCs were taken into preventive custody when they marched from Public Gardens to Gate II of the Assembly protesting against the Chief Minister’s remarks insulting Mr. Naidu.

They were released later. Soon after they were suspended from the Assembly and the Council for the day for stalling the proceedings, the TDP legislators sat in dharna for nearly two hours at the entrance shouting slogans against the Chief Minister.

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