The All India Kisan Congress cell today slammed the Telangana government over its controversial decision to auction all its lands to fund future expenses.
Cell national vice-president M Kodanda Reddy alleged that the state government had a "secret agenda" behind the sale of the lands, and that the rulers of Andhra Pradesh had provoked Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao to sell them.
He said that the party had written a letter to Chief Secretary Somesh Kumar, urging him to stop the auction of the government lands in the state.
Reddy claimed that the party had stopped similar auctions of government lands in the past as well, and that it could do so again.
"Where our party had distributed forest lands to the poor people of the state, the TRS government is trying to auction off its lands. Any government should use its lands, ones that it has acquired from the farmers, for the initial project for which the lands were originally acquired. All such lands should be returned to the farmers concerned after five years if they remain unused," he asserted.
The leader then alleged that the leaders of the ruling party had bought the lands at throwaway rates at the auctions of the state government. He claimed that the preceding Congress governments had always stopped party leaders from taking part in such land auctions.
Like other Congress leaders, he too claimed that the state government did not have the powers to auction its lands and demanded that it withdraw the controversial decision immediately.
Some days ago, TPCC official spokesperson G Niranjan also
lashed out at the Telangana government for the proposal to sell its lands.
Niranjan had argued that the government had no "moral right" to sell the government lands in the state, as it was merely a custodian of the lands, which needed to be preserved for the use of future generations, too.