BJP seeks White Paper on Miyapur land deals
Raghunandan questions sale of 40 acres of prime land worth Rs 4,000 crore by BRS AP president
HYDERABAD: BJP Dubbak MLA M. Raghunandan Rao on Tuesday questioned the K. Chandrasekhar Rao-led Telangana government why it allowed an Andhra Pradesh realtor —Thota Chandrashekar, who is currently the AP president of the Bharat Rashtra Samithi —to sell 40 acres of prime land worth thousands of crores in Miyapur.
The BJP MLA alleged that the land sale was a "quid pro quo" by the CM in exchange for the BRS AP president paying for the party’s Khammam public meeting and using the proceeds from the land deal to fund the party in the 2023 Assembly elections. Each of the four acres in Survey No. 78 of Miyapur is worth Rs 100 crore, he claimed.
“This is a Rs. 4,000 crore scam, allowed under the supervision of former Telangana Chief Secretary Somesh Kumar with the blessings of the Chief Minister. Thota Chandrashekar was allowed to have a free run because there is an underhand deal between him and the Telangana Chief Minister who is seeking to use this ill-gotten wealth to fund his party in the coming elections in the state,” Raghunandan Rao alleged.
The BJP MLA cited a precedent in which the Ranga Reddy district collector Amoy Kumar precluded the sale of an eight-acre plot, also in Miyapur, that was allowed to be sold by a company with which Sukesh Gupta, the owner of BRS Jewellers, had mortgaged the land.
Raghunandan Rao claimed that this precedent did not apply to Thota Chandrashekar. The company in the Mukesh Gupta case had approached the Telangana High Court seeking permission to sell the land to recoup the money given to Gupta, who mortgaged the land with them. Although the court had allowed it, the Ranga Reddy collector objected and challenged the High Court's decision in a special leave petition.
When the same sequence of events occurred with land that was purportedly held by Thota Chandrashekar, who also went to court and was granted permission to sell the land, the district collector allegedly did nothing, the BJP MLA alleged.
“By no means do we claim that the events surrounding the land deal that Sukesh Gupta entered into were correct. But when the district collector can object to the outcome in that case, why act differently now? Law must be the same in both instances. The Chief Minister and Ranga Reddy collector have to explain these different standards,” he remarked while demanding a White Paper from the government on the Miyapur land deals.
He stated that the BJP would pursue legal recourse on its own in this matter if the state government does not take action to prevent Thota Chandrashekar from profiting through the sale of the 40 acres of land he has questionable ownership over.