Telangana Agriculture Minister S Niranjan Reddy today lambasted TPCC head and MP N Uttam Kumar Reddy after the party allegedly made "baseless charges" of land grabbing against him.
In an open letter to Uttam Kumar Reddy, the minister expressed his annoyance at the leaders of the Congress for spreading "falsehoods" against him, and for claiming that he had encroached 200 acres of endowment lands in Wanaparthy, his home district.
He continued, "I am wiring this letter with deep anguish and agony after an irresponsible, mala fide, deliberate and concocted story was narrated by a leader of your party, former legislator, Sampath Kumar, yesterday. You were also present during the meeting at which all this was said, as reported by both print and electronic media outlets."
In the letter, the minister clarified that the charges being levelled against him by the Congress' leaders were entirely untrue, "concocted" to tarnish his image as a public representative, and said, "This kind of malicious defamation calls for legal action. I own neither 200 acres of land nor any palatial farmhouse in Wanaparthy's Pangal. My wife and I together own less than 50 acres of land. Data on my landholdings in available on the public domain. And despite this, Congress leader Sampath Kumar has gone on to make absolutely false charges against me. This kind of behaviour is condemnable and irresponsible."
"All the assets owned by both me and my wife were declared during the 2018 Assembly elections. I had mentioned that while I own about 30 acres of land, my wife owns less than 10 acres, a mango orchard. I had also mentioned that a residence-cum-gynaecology OP clinic was built by my wife for our daughter, a medical practitioner, which was at that point still under construction. For the setting up of a charitable goshala (cow shed), my wife had acquired two-and-a-half acres of land about two years ago. This is now run by my daughter. So, I was left bewildered when former MLA Sampath Kumar made such wild allegations," he added.
Niranjan Reddy also rebuked Uttam Kumar Reddy's colleagues for claiming that he had encroached on temple lands in Wanaparthy and Pebbair, and said the charges were "baseless criminal accusations".
He clarified that during his stint as a lawyer, he had indeed the advocate on record for one of the contesting parties in the Inam Tribunal cases at Wanaparthy and Pebbair in the 1990s, but that after becoming an activist in the Telangana movement after 2001, he had not been directly or even indirectly linked in any way with the proceedings.
Claiming that Sampath Kumar and other political adversaries of the TRS had been spreading lies about him only to facilitate the rise of the successors of late Raja Rameshwara Rao, the minister alleged, "Sampath Kumar and other leaders of the Congress have been slandering me just to favour the successor of late Raja Rameshwara Rao who was a Congress leader and a close relative of Uttam Kumar Reddy, Raja Krishna Deva Rao.
He then demanded that the former MLA and other Congress leaders tender an unconditional apology to him for their claims as they had left him terribly upset, especially since they were made in Uttam Kumar Reddy's presence.
"It is a fundamental principle that you too must be aware that one must back up an allegation with substantial proof. Otherwise, the accuser is liable to be penalised under provisions of both Civil and Criminal law. So, I call upon you to ask those responsible for making false claims about me to tender unconditional apologies. Otherwise, my right to take civil and criminal action is herewith reserved," the minister warned.
The issue of land grabbing has been a persistent problem in Telangana. However, it has come to the fore again after former Health Minister Etala Rajender was
removed from office after serious charges of usurping government-allotted lands were made against him by some landowners of Medak district.
The incident even prompted the TPCC to announce that it would
write a letter to Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan regarding the growing menace of land grabbing in the state.