Opposition seeks Governor intervention to stop razing of old structure

Hyderabad: An all-party delegation comprising senior leaders from various opposition parties in the State urged Governor E S L Narasimhan to intervene and put brakes on the government's plans to demolish existing Secretariat buildings to build a new one in its place.

After filing several petitions in High Court opposing the move in the last few weeks, the opposition parties now decided to take the fight to Supreme Court next week.

Former MP G Vivek, who held an all-party round-table meeting few days ago to elicit views of all political parties in the State, on the issue of demolition of Secretariat building, met the Governor.

The delegation was led by Congress leaders K Jana Reddy and A Revanth Reddy, Shabbir Ali, Ponnam Prabhakar, Jeevan Reddy, D K Aruna, Chintala Ramachandra Reddy (BJP), L Ramana (TDP), Prof Kodandaram and P L Vishweshwar Rao (TJS), Chada Venkat Reddy (CPI).

During the meeting with the Governor, some interesting conversation was reported to have taken place between the Governor and Congress leader Shabbir Ali.

The Congress leader reportedly remarked that the Governor was ignoring the opposition and was friendly with the Chief Ministers of two Telugu States.

Narsimhan, it is said, told Shabbir Ali that the latter should not make such comments in Raj Bhavan. Such comments can be made from political platforms. But Shabbir Ali said that he was only stating facts.

Intervening in the conversation, Jana Reddy requested the Governor to do something remarkable which the people of Telangana would always remember.

Addressing the media later, Vivek stated that the Governor is the custodian of the properties of the government in GHMC limits and hence Narasimhan had been requested to make use of his special powers and ensure that the Secretariat buildings are protected from misuse by the government.

TJS chief Prof Kodandaram felt demolition of Secretariat buildings was a bad idea as they are located ideally free from traffic congestion and other issues.

The State is in a big debt already and not in a position to reimburse medical bills of even MLAs to private hospitals, he said, pointing out that State can ill afford to spend thousands of crores of rupees for a new Secretariat at this juncture.

Malkajgiri MP A Revanth Reddy alleged that under the pretext of building of new Secretariat, a big conspiracy could have been hatched to displace land records as benamis of the CM had encroached upon thousands of acres of government lands across the State. He said it was Governor's duty to protect all files and documents in Secretariat.

BJP leader Aruna minced no words in her criticism of Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao on new Secretariat plans. She said that the CM was suffering from a mental condition that he was the ruler of Telangana State and can do whatever he wished.

L Ramana (TDP) and Chada Venkat Reddy (CPI) also slammed the CM for the decision, which they said was just wasting public money.