Apologise or face criminal action: Niranjan Reddy warns Congress leaders

Congress leaders made unfounded allegations against the Agriculture Minister over encroachment of endowment lands

Hyderabad: Agriculture Minister S Niranjan Redy on Saturday demanded an unconditional apology from former MLA A Sampath Kumar and other Congress leaders who made unfounded allegations against the former over encroachment of endowment lands. He said unless the Congress leaders apologise, he would initiate civil and criminal action against them.

In a letter to TPCC President and MP N Uttam Kumar Reddy, the Minister expressed deep anguish and agony terming the allegations leveled by Sampath Kumar as irresponsible, malafide, deliberate and concocted. He clarified that the issues referred against him were far from truth and reality, and were made with malicious intention to tarnish his image as a public representative and Minister in the State government. It is highly condemnable and derogatory intended to defame him which attracts legal action, he added.

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Rubbishing the allegations that he owned over 200 acres of land and a lavish farm house in Pangal mandal of Wanaparthy district, Niranjan Reddy stated that the total extent of the land owned by him and his wife were less than 50 acres including the latest purchase at Chandur village.

“As a matter of fact I have stated in my December, 2018 elections Affidavit all the moveable and immoveable properties and owned by me and my wife and the said Affidavit is in public domain. I have mentioned about 30 Acre of my land, less than 10 Acres of my wife’s land in which Mango orchard is prevalent for the last 15 years,” he said.

In response to the allegations that he grabbed some temple lands in Wanaparthy and Pebbair, the Minister clarified that he was a lawyer by profession besides being a conventional farmer since 1984. He stated that during his legal practice as an advocate, he had represented one of the contesting parties in the Inam Tribunal cases at Wanaparthy and Pebbair in 1990s.

But he gave up all his practice after entering the Telangana movement in 2001 and was not associated with the case thereafter. However, he mentioned that the Inam Tribunal at Gadwal and later at Wanaparthy and Appellate Authority at Mahabubnagar have successively passed orders in those Inam proceedings of Wanaparthy and Pebbair in favour of the opposite parties during 2005 to 2013 when the Congress party was in power.

“Does it mean that people in your government have influenced for such orders? Can anybody cast aspersions on the legal authorities who try and dispose such proceedings?,” he questioned.

He alleged that Sampath Kumar and other Congress leaders were mudslinging against him only to favour the successors of late Raja Rameshwara Rao i.e. Raja Krishna Deva Rao who was a Congress leader and also a close relative of Uttam Kumar Reddy.

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