Date:17/12/2006 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2006/12/17/stories/2006121704070300.htm

Andhra Pradesh - Anantapur

Congress leaders demand probe into TDP leader's landholdings

Staff Reporter

Allege he claimed compensation for submerged `benami' lands

FIGHTING BACK: Congress MLA from Singanamala S. Sailajanath speaking at a press conference in Anantapur on Saturday.

ANANTAPUR: District Congress Committee (DCC) leaders have alleged that the TDP leaders from the district, who have been vocal in criticising Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy on the issue of his surrender of land, have in fact held large land holdings till they were taken away from them through land struggles.

At separate press meets here on Saturday, the Congress leaders, including Singanamala legislator S. Sailajanath and others, launched a scathing attack against TDP legislator from Uravakonda P. Keshav.

They alleged that his family had held 2,000 acres of land, snatched from the poor farmers in Koukuntla and surrounding villages in Uravakonda constituency, till they were taken over by the Government under the Land Ceiling Act in 1976-77.

Yet, his family had held 300 acres till 1984 and a major land struggle taken up by the peasants of the area, backed by the CPI, had got about 150 acres liberated, they alleged.

The TDP leader's family had also claimed huge compensation for its `benami' lands submerged in Penna Ahobilam Balancing Reservoir, the DCC leaders alleged.

The leader's family had reclaimed about 80 acres later by filing a petition in the court that the land taken over from them was not cultivable. But later it was sold to the SC Corporation, the Congress leaders alleged.

Charging that several TDP leaders had assigned lands on `benami' names, the Congress leaders demanded a thorough probe into the TDP leaders' and their families' land holdings in the district and the neighbouring areas of Karnataka.

Meanwhile, Congress leader Y. Visveswar Reddy, who left CPI(M) before the local bodies' elections earlier this year and whose father headed the peasants' land struggle in Kokuntla area, demanded a probe into the land holdings of Mr. Keshav and his family.

He alleged that the TDP legislator's family had transferred a large extent of land on the names of their maids, servants and managers to escape the Land Ceiling Act and sold them later.

DCC leaders T. Bhaskar Reddy, N. Satyanarayana Reddy and S. Jayachandra Naidu, Uravakonda ZPTC member G. Sudhakar, Sarpanches of Amidyala and Raketla B. Tejonath and M. Ashok Kumar also sought action against Mr. Keshav's family.