During a press meet on Monday Congress leader, Jairam Ramesh charged a number of allegations on the NDA’s Vice-Presidential candidate Venkaiah Naidu.
Congress has demanded the VP candidate to prove himself clean from all the allegation charged against him saying that, “those holding high public offices must fully disclose their interests as also special treatment in shape of state largesse for themselves and for their kith and kin.”
Speaking at the press meet, Jairam pointed out a few cases where Naidu was involved. He spoke about the July 2014 incident where the Telangana government had passed an order of Rs 271 crore for purchase of vehicles for police. Significantly the companies from where the vehicles were to be purchased happened to be owned by Naidu’s son and another by the son of Telangana Chief Minister. He charged that the order was placed in contravention of all rules and without even floating a tender.
He brought into notice another incident, charging Naidu of using 20 acres of Residential & Forestry land allocated to Kushabhau Thakre Memorial Trust, whose chairman is Naidu, the Madhya Pradesh government as a commercial land. He added that the lease deed of the land in Shahpura near Bhopal was registered in January 2007.
He also claimed that Naidu had in the past been accused of grabbing 4.95 acres of land in Andhra Pradesh reserved for the poor and destitute, which he was later forced to return after public embarrassment on Aug 2002. Jairam further highlighted the recent incident which he says was deliberately kept as a secret. He said that on June 20, 2017, the Telangana government had issued an order, exempting the Swarna Bharat Trust of Naidu’s daughter from paying various charges amounting to more than Rs 2 crore to the Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority and demanded to know why such exemptions were done as a favor to Naidu’s daughter.
The Congress charged these allegations against Naidu and asked him to come clean on them.
Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar (BJP) said that all these allegations made by Congress are baseless and unsubstantiated.