Amidst a protest and walkout by the DMK members, Municipal Administration and Rural Development Minister K.P. Munusamy on Monday told the Assembly that the government would recover the portion of land within Anna Arivalayam, the DMK headquarters here, earmarked as open space reservation (OSR) land for the Chennai Corporation.
The Minister also announced that legal steps would be taken to recover all encroached extents of land in Chennai, including the land in use by DMK president M. Karunanidhi at his Gopalapuram residence.
He said that in 2003, a resolution was adopted at the Chennai Corporation Council meeting for recovering the land, but no further action was taken.
Mr. Munusamy was responding to AIADMK member P. Vetrivel, who levelled a slew of land-grabbing charges against former DMK ministers in Chennai and suburban areas.
Mr. Vetrivel, a former councillor of the Chennai Corporation, said the 780-sq ft land at Gopalapuram was assigned to Mr. Karunanidhi in 1967, for which he paid Rs.3,250. Subsequently, Mr. Karunanidhi wanted to return the land and the money received from him was repaid. He did not surrender the land.
As far as the land dispute in Anna Arivalayam was concerned, Mr. Vetrivel's complaint was that the DMK had constructed a building and erected a transformer in the 1,890 sq ft earmarked as OSR. Later, it came forward to offer land in front of the headquarters, but it was not utilised for any public purpose.
As he wound up his speech, Mr. Vetrivel accused the DMK regime of looting all ‘five elements' of nature, evoking loud protest from DMK members.
When the DMK's deputy leader Duraimurugan wanted to raise a point of order, Speaker D. Jayakumar denied him permission, saying Mr. Vetrivel had obtained prior permission from him for raising the issue and the rules of the House did not permit Mr. Duraimurugan to intervene.
DMK members rose in support of Mr. Duraimurugan and the Ministers, backed by other ruling party legislators, got into a verbal clash with them. The DMK members staged a walkout to protest Mr. Vetrivel's remarks and the denial of permission by the Speaker to defend their case.
“They are leaving the House because they are not able to face the truth,” said Mr. Munusamy.
As for the allegation that former minister K. Ponmudy had appropriated a piece of land surrendered by the late neurosurgeon B. Ramamurthi and his wife in Srinagar Colony at Saidapet, the Minister said the land was registered in the name of Mr. Ponmudy's mother-in-law and the matter was in court.
Similarly, a case related to the land allegedly encroached upon by former Minister Arcot Veeraswami's brother Devarajan was also pending in court.
Another allegation by Vetrivel was that DMK treasurer and former Deputy Chief Minister M.K. Stalin had occupied the land given by Jawahar Nagar Society for constructing building for scouts at Kolathur.
Revenue Minister P. Thangamani said Mr. Veeraswami's brother Devarajan had grabbed over an acre of ‘lake poromboke' in Korattur but it had been recovered.
