SRIKAKULAM: Taking exception to the inclusion of his name in the SIT report on Visakhapatnam land scam, former revenue minister and senior YSRC leader Dharmana Prasada Rao has said it was to divert the attention of people from the real persons behind the issue. He did not rule out taking legal action against the State government and expressed confidence that charges against him would fall flat in the court.
Speaking to media persons in Srikakulam on Thursday, the YSRC leader said that the district-level land allocations will not come under the business rules of Secretariat and pointed out that even a Cabinet minister cannot allocate land directly.
Stating that the SIT was influenced by the TDP government, he sought to know why revenue officials were not part of the SIT when the case was related to land. He alleged that VUDA acquired 500 acres of land and middlemen were involved in it.
“The land acquisition was made in 11 days and the GO was issued shortly thereafter, for benefiting the middlemen. It was revoked in the next few days after BJP floor leader Vishnu Kumar Raju raised various issues on the Visakhapatnam land scam in the Assembly,” he explained.The YSRC leader demanded that Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu make public the names of the big shots involved in the scam. He said though Naidu knew about the key persons, he was trying to throw mud on the Opposition party leaders like him.
He pointed out that the GO was issued on the assigned land stating that the ex-servicemen and the freedom fighters can dispose of their assigned lands after 10 years from the time of assignment on November 11, 1994, when Naidu was the revenue minister.
“Although the investigating officials made it clear that the records were tampered with, why didn’t the government investigate the matter?” he questioned.
Meanwhile, HRD Minister Ganta Srinivasa Rao, who was given a clean chit by the SIT in the land scam, said he stands vindicated.
Govt hides names of TDP leaders, says BJP; seeks full report
BJP Legislature Party leader MLA P Vishnukumar Raju criticised that TDP government has revealed the names of only a few names of the Opposition party leaders in the SIT investigation report. “It was on my request that Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu ordered the SIT probe. The officials should have provided a copy of the report to me, before making the details public. They instead disclosed the doctored version of the report, ” he said, demanding the full report be made public.