Chandrababu Naidu refutes allegations on land deals in Amaravati

Hyderabad: Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu on Sunday accused the opposition YSR Congress of creating hurdles in the development of new capital and refuted allegations of thousands of acres of land being purchased by some ministers, MPs and MLAs of the ruling Telugu Desam Party.

Refuting allegations of questionable land deals in the Amaravati region, which has been notified as the state Capital, Naidu said, since June 2, 2014, a total of 9,231 acres of land was sold, in some cases multiple times, and as many as 20,306 transactions took place in the region.

"Amaravati was notified as the state's new Capital region on September 3, 2014. Between June 2 (when the state was bifurcated) and September 3, 2014, about 604 transactions took place and 515 acres of land was sold. Between September 4 and December 8, 2014 when the land-pooling policy for the Capital was announced, 1,756 transactions were recorded wherein 1,724 acres of land was sold.

"Since December 9, 2014, to date, 9,304 transactions happened and 6,573 acres of land was sold. In all, 20,306 transactions happened and 9231 acres of land changed hands," Naidu said at a press conference in the state Secretariat.

Of the top 100 land deals in the Capital region, the highest area of land purchased in a single transaction was 7.5 acres and the lowest was two acres. In all 100 people purchased a total of 365.66 acres, the Chief Minister said.

Naidu's statement came following a series of news reports alleging thousands of acres of land being purchased by some ministers, MPs and legislators belonging to the ruling Telugu Desam Party.

The reports also alleged that Chandrababu's son and TDP national general secretary Nara Lokesh purchased vast tracts of land using benami (proxy) buyers.

"Some media houses have been publishing and telecasting blatantly malicious news stories on the land deals...They dragged even my son's name despite the fact that the said property is under attachment by the Crime Investigation Department," the CM said.

With regard to the riverside residence owned by the realtor Lingamaneni Ramesh, Naidu said the property now belonged to the state government.

"When the state was bifurcated, we did not even have a Capital. Even before we identified the Capital region and notified it, many people purchased lands in places like Donakonda, Vinukonda, Gannavaram, Agiripalli, Nuzividu, Mangalagiri and Amaravati hoping the capital may come up in those regions....we declared Amaravati as the Capital region after local farmers and land owners came forward to give their land under the novel land-pooling scheme," Naidu said.

Upon notifying the Capital, the government wanted to ban land transactions in the region but gave up the idea following opposition from the local farmers, he said.

Attacking YSR Congress, he said, a "desperate and hostile" opposition party was trying to cause impediments in the development of new capital.

"They tried to instigate the farmers and stop them from giving their lands for the capital. Then they filed petitions up to the Supreme Court. They went to the National Green Tribunal. They sent petitions to the Centre...but the local farmers displayed an iron will and solidly stood behind the government," the Chief Minister said.