Sajjala Ramakrishna Reddy terms land pooling 'biggest scam'

Amaravati: Asserting that Amaravati land pooling scheme is one of the biggest scams, Sajjala Ramakrishna Reddy, advisor to the government (public affairs) and YSRCP general secretary, said that TDP leaders are intentionally playing tricks to bluff people with sting operations as their roles were fully exposed.

Addressing a press conference here on Friday, Ramakrishna Reddy said that former chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu deliberately brought land pooling scheme to benefit his benamis and close associates, which is a scam running into Rs 1 lakh crore and part of it is the illegal transaction of assigned lands. He said that Naidu's aides made agreements on those lands threatening the poor that compensation of land pooling would not come and snatched their lands at a very low price.

Pointing out that the GO 41 was issued by the then government amending the Land Pooling Act, he said that the sole intention was to benefit those who grabbed the assigned lands from the poor. The GO also has the signature of then Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu who was also the chairman of CRDA and municipal minister P Narayana. Chandrababu is Accused-1 and Narayana is A-2 in this case, he added.

The previous government revealed about the capital in January 2015, but even before the announcement, TDP leaders and their aides acquired lands in the region. Later, amendments were made to the Land Pooling Act in February 2016 through GO No 41, betraying the poor.

TDP leaders are putting up the new drama of bringing sting operations just to mislead the people, he said and added that people were not ready to believe their cheap tricks. If Chandrababu is not involved in the scam, he should cooperate in the investigation or be prepared to face the penal action for the scam. Chandrababu's interest was real estate and not capital. If he was really keen to develop capital city, he should have built it between Vijayawada and Guntur, he said.