'Axe on Eatala Rajender a ploy to cover up govt failure in containing Covid'

Hyderabad: Telangana Legislative Council member Alugubelli Narsireddy condemned the sacking of Health Minister Eatala Rajender in the name of probing land-grabbing allegations against him.

Narsireddy said that Eatala, being a Health Minister had done his best within the given constraints to deliver at a time when thousands of people thronging the Primary Health Centers (PHCs) for testing and vaccination were being turned away due to shortage of testing kits and vaccine doses.

"Beds in the government hospitals are full and private hospitals are turning people away from giving admissions if they fail to pay the sum demanded for the Covid treatment," he said, adding transferring the Health department to Chief Minister who is not accessible even to the peoples' representatives would create several hardships for people.

Narsireddy said it was not time for the Chief Minister to play politics in the name of taking action against one person and it would do no good to people during the troubled times.

Adding that CM's action to order probe against Eatala was nothing but to evade responsibility and to cover up the State government failures in containing the spread of the deadly coronavirus in Telangana, he said the primary responsibility of the State government should be to question the laxity on the part of the Centre for failing in the preparedness and tackling the second wave of Covid and saving people of the State from it.

However, the Chief Minister's action using the land-grabbing issue to serve his political interests does not benefit the people at a time when they were battling for their lives due to the fast-spreading Covid surge.

He demanded a probe by a sitting judge of the High Court against all the land grabbing cases in the State, saying, "I demanded for probe into the encroachments of government lands, Assigned lands, Kharaz lands, Endowments lands, Wakf lands, Church lands in Hyderabad and combined Ranga Reddy districts when the State government introduced revenue bill in the Legislative Council. But, to date, there is no response on the same," he said.

The State government should order a probe into the land-grabbing complaints against all persons irrespective of their political and social affiliations, including Ministers, MLAs, MLCs, other peoples representatives, officials and politicians, he demanded.