Agriculture minister Pratipati Pullarao condemned the report of Sakshi newspaper and they were planning civil and criminal actions against the newspaper and TV channel what carried the news about the land purchases of TDP ministers in capital region.
He addressed the media accompanied by Municipal administration minister P Narayana, Pullarao, who according to Sakshi purchased 196 acres , said the report was a blatant falsehood.
Pullarao and Narayana played key role in persuading the farmers to part with their lands for the sake of capital construction. Both the ministers almost toured every village in the capital region studying the various types of lands owned by farmers.
Interestingly, today’s cabinet meeting was unusually a brief affair. Noramlly, Naidu’s cabinet meeting goes for 10 and 12 hours. Today meeting could not be continued in the chief minister and many ministers were disturbed the Sakshi report which revealed all details of the land transaction done by the ministers. Minister Narayana and Pullarao immediately addressed the media to deny the Sakshi report.
” If Jagan shows that I had purchased lands from dalits on benami names, I would distribute all the lands to the poor,” he said.
He also denied the charge against Nayarayana that he had purchased 3100 acres of land that cost Rs 15,000 crore.
The report was written out of frustration, he alleged. ” He (Jagan) is involved in nine cases related to corruption. Everybody knows, he will go to jail any day. As he is involved in the corruption, he is used to look at everything from the angle of corruption,” Pullarao said.
Pullarao said the matter was being discussed with legal experts and they would also approach the press council of India, and editors’ guild for the justice.
Municipal minister Narayana said the there was no consistency in the report. ” The report says one thing in Page one and other in page four and five. This shows how the distorted the information,” he said.
Pullarao and Narayana said they would file a defamation suit against the newspaper and channel.
“Jagan is jealous of the development taking place in the capital region. He is planning to disturb the development,” he said.
But the ministers failed to justify how chief minister Chandrababu Naidu had made an illegal villa, Lingamaneni Estates, as his official residence. They simply said it was only a temporary residence but tried to evade answer to the media’s question that why did the government spend about Rs 75 crore on the security arrangement when it was a temporary residence.
