Harish Writes To Rahul, Demands Ponguleti Sack From Cabinet

Senior BRS leader T. Harish Rao demanded that Congress leader Rahul Gandhi direct Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy to dismiss revenue minister Ponguleti Srinivas Reddy from the state Cabinet and ask the Telangana government to order an independent probe into alleged misuse of Section 22A of the Registration Act.

Harish Rao, in a letter to Rahul Gandhi said that Section 22A was being abused for arbitrary freezing of private properties and demanding 30 per cent commissions to remove lands from the prohibited list and forcing land owners into coercive 50:50 development arrangements in the state.

There are allegations of a “30 per cent collection racket” under which property owners were allegedly being forced to approach intermediaries to get their properties removed from the prohibited list, Harish Rao said.

“If state machinery is being used to create pressure on property owners for private gain, it would constitute a serious abuse of governmental power and warrants a comprehensive investigation,” he said.

Demanding that the revenue minister be removed from the Cabinet, Harish Rao said the revenue department was directly responsible for land records, classification, mutations and prohibited-property lists. “And if the Chief Minister was unaware of these alleged irregularities, it reflects a serious failure of supervision. If he was aware and failed to act, the failure is even more serious,” he said.

He demanded that a Commission of Inquiry headed by a retired High Court Judge be constituted to examine the entire 22A controversy and publication of a district-wise and survey-number-wise list of properties added to and removed from Section 22A, along with reasons for doing so.