BJP: Assigned Land Fell from 24L to 6L Acres; Probe Dharani

Hyderabad: BJP floor leader A Maheshwar Reddy on Tuesday asked why Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy was not ordering a CBI probe into the Rs.2 lakh crore fraudulent land deals that allegedly took place through Dharani portal during the BRS regime. The deals that took place in the Dharani portal need forensic auditing to find out where the deals took place and how the land records were converted.

Addressing a press conference at the party office here, Maheshwar Reddy said, “When Andhra Pradesh was bifurcated, Telangana state had 24 lakh acres of assigned land, but now it is left with only six lakh acres. The records state that around six lakh acres of forest land changed hands. The state had 1.3 lakh acres of Bhoodan land, and over one lakh acres of endowment land. But, a large quantity of these land rights changed in the Dharani portal.”

Maheshwar Reddy said that about 18 lakh acres of land, mostly belonging to private persons, was put in the Prohibited List. Another 20 lakh farmers were suffering as their land records are missing in the Dharani portal.

“Though the government has started giving land record pass books from November 2020, the records from 2017 have been uploaded in Dharani portal. All these suspicious deals in the Dharani portal indicate largescale corruption,” he said.

Maheshwar Reddy pointed out that the Centre had given `83 crore to conduct a comprehensive survey and digitalise the records of assignment, endowment, Wakf Board and prohibited land parcels. The BRS government diverted it.

“When Revanth Reddy was in the Opposition, he demanded CBI enquiry into the Dharani portal but kept the issue in cold storage after coming to power. If the state government fails to put the facts before the public, a memorandum would be given to the Centre seeking a thorough probe,” Maheshwar Reddy said.

About 1,100 acres of endowment land belonging to Seetharampur temple in Chevella was sold cheap cost with a hidden deal, he said. Revanth Reddy demanded a probe into the encroachment of endowment land by BRS MP G. Ranjith Reddy but picked him as the Congress candidate from Chevella. Revanth Reddy had staged protests against the Kokapet and Miyapur land deals but was now maintaining a stoic silence. “Reports confirm that the Congress leaders are getting a large share of all these deals and hence not ordering probe into the Dharani portal,” he alleged.

Maheshwar Reddy said the Congress government had borrowed Rs.13,000 in its 13 weeks at Rs.1,000 crore every week for salaries and bills. The latest reports state that the state has auctioned to raise another Rs.4,000 crore. The state would land in a huge debt trap if the government failed to improve its revenue by curtailing the wasteful expenditure, he said.