MPs stage protest for sanction of defence land

TRS MPs on Thursday protested in the Lok Sabha against the Central government’s step-motherly treatment towards the state on sanctioning defence lands. They raised the slogans “one county — one policy”leading to the Lok Sabha being adjourned for 15 minutes.

Later, during the zero hour, the TRS floor leader in Lok Sabha A.P. Jithendar Reddy said that Union minister Arun Jaitley, when he was the defence minister, had agreed to give defence lands for the construction of a new secretariat and national and state roads but the present Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is delaying. “This shows the stepmotherly treatment, Mr Jithender Reddy said.

He alleged that defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman is working in favour of AP but not helping Telangana. He said that the Centre is demanding allotment of 200 acre of defence land for the construction of new secretariat and national and state roads, but the Centre is not reciprocating.

Mr Jithender Reddy said that the defence department under Ms Sitharaman has sanctioned 210 acre defence land to Karnataka in just 10 days after the state had requested but the defence department not taking a decision when they have been requesting for the three years.

Mr Jithendar Reddy said Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao had met Prime Minister Narendra Modi sometime back and requested for the sanction of Bison Polo land belonging to the defence and later met Mr Arun Jaitley when he was defence minister who had agreed to sanction the defence land. He alleged that Ms Sitharaman is delaying in sanctioning the defence land to Telangana state.

He said that the state has agreed to Mr Jaitley’s request to sanction 598 acres to defence in lieu of sanctioning defence land in addition to paying `96 crore.