The State government should immediately ask the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to initiate an inquiry into the land pooling cases in Visakhapatnam if it wants to come clean on the issue, YSR Congress legislator R.K. Roja has said.
Addressing a press conference here on Sunday, she said that even BJP legislator from the city, Vishnu Kumar Raju, had been seeking a CBI inquiry into the issue.
“The government appears to have adopted a strategy to help land-grabbers,” she alleged.
Pointing the finger at Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu, she said: “Mr. Naidu and his son N. Lokesh, and Minister from the district Ganta Srinivasa Rao have a share in land-grabbing, and Visakhapatnam is their prime target.”
Ganja smuggling
I was surprised when a section of the media reported that ganja smuggling in the Agency area was being done at the behest of Panchayat Raj Minister Ayyanna Patrudu.
“This is the time for people to come out and reject the TDP government,” she said.
Referring to a national survey on atrocities against women, Ms. Roja said that the names of two legislators of the TDP, Devineni Umamaheswara Rao and K. Atchannaidu, find a mention in it. “They have to tender their resignations,” she said.
Referring to the demand for a new railway zone with headquarters in Visakhapatnam, Ms. Roja said that it had been close to three years, and the promise was yet to be fulfilled.
“The people of Vizag should question the TDP legislators on what they have achieved so far,” she said.
Falling short of calling the Chief Minister as one who brings bad luck, she said: “Till about three years ago, A.P. was the rice bowl. Now, it is reeling under drought and the number of farmer suicides has doubled. Anantapur was a district that had given the highest mandate to the TDP in the 2014 elections. Today, it is a district that is witnessing large-scale migration of farmers and suicides.”
‘False cases’
She alleged that the voice of the Opposition was being stifled in Assembly by the ruling party by foisting false cases on us and our leader Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy.
Former Chief Secretary Ramakanth Reddy had, in an interview, said that Mr. Jaganmohan Reddy was falsely implicated in various cases at the behest of the Congress and the TDP, she said.
“If we raise our voice inside Assembly, we are banned from entering it, and if we do it outside, we are arrested and booked under false cases. This is not democracy,” she asserted.
