Hyderabad, March 26: At last, some headway was made out of the deadlock over the land allotment issue in the Assembly on Friday as both the government and the Opposition softened their stands.
The government has agreed to consider appointing a House Committee, if the House was not satisfied with the debate and its response and if any prima facie evidence on irregularities was placed before the house.
The government, however, wanted a direction from the Chair narrowing down the debate to one or two specific subjects of land allotment as debate on the issue as a whole was not possible in the remaining time of the session.
After some bargaining from either side, the Opposition broadly narrowed down for a debate on the land allotted to Special Economic Zones (SEZs) and other infrastructure projects.
As the government sought further zeroing in on the subjects, Deputy Speaker N. Manohar asked the government to be prepared for the statement and debate on Saturday and called for a floor leaders’ meeting in the evening. The Minister for Major Industries J. Geetha Reddy suggested that the issue of SEZs and related Wakf land allotment could be taken up in the debate.
After two adjournments in the morning the chair allowed Opposition parties and treasury benches to express their opinion to break the deadlock.
Deputy Leader of TDLP G. Muddukrishnama Naidu sought an assurance from the government that it would appoint a Joint Legislature Committee (JLC) if the Opposition was not satisfied. Land allotment to projects, industries and SEZs should be debated as prima facie evidence of misuse or disuse of the land was there in the form of notices served by Income Tax department to some companies, he noted.
Syed Ahmed Pasha Qadri of AIMIM insisted that statement on the issue must include Wakf lands and J. Ranga Reddy of CPI (M) and Jayaprakash Narayan stressed the need for a comprehensive debate with an assurance on House Committee (HC) as irregularities in land allotment were there from the beginning.
Ministers D. Sridhar Babu, J. Geetha Reddy and N. Raghuveera Reddy argued that it was not possible to discuss the issue as a whole and asked the Opposition to narrow down on the demand. P. Keshav (TDP) said land allotted to SEZs and infrastructure could be debated, after the Ministers turned down suggestion of P. Ashoka Gajapathi Raju’s (TDP) that corruption could be the single issue.
During the evening session, Telugu Desam members rushed to the podium giving a different signal about the understanding reached in the morning, forcing the Chair to adjourn the House for the day. AIMIM members also stalled the proceedings for sometime seeking a House Committee on the Wakf lands issue.
–Agencies