Congress attacks Naidu over his 'properties'

The Congress on Monday attacked National Democratic Alliance (NDA) vice-presidential candidate M.Venkaiah Naidu over his and his family's properties.

While addressing a press conference, Congress leader Jairam Ramesh raised a question about Naidu's accumulation of properties and asserted that he should come clean about all of them.

Ramesh first referred to 'secret order', in which Naidu's Telangana trust Swarna Bharat Trust, was exempted from a developmental charge of more than Rs.2 crore.

"On June 20, 2017, the Telangana government issued an order in which the trust was exempted from a development charge of more than Rs.2 crore, which had to be paid to the Hyderabad Development Authority. A secret exemption order was issued, whose information is not available on the website." Ramesh said.

The trust's managing trustee is Naidu's daughter Deepa Venkat.

The Congress leader further questioned Naidu on the Telangana Government's order of 4,000 motor vehicles worth Rs.270 crores, being given to his son Harshvardhan Naidu, without an open tender release.

"On July 2014, the Telangana government gave an order to two dealers without any open tender release. One dealer was Himanshu Motor, whose owner is the state CM's son and the other dealer is Harsha Toyota, whose owner is Naidu's son", Ramesh said.

The Rajya Sabha MP then asked the NDA vice-president candidate about the allotment of 20 acres in Madhya Pradesh to his Khushabhao Thackeray Memorial Trust, which is valued at a few hundred crores.

Ramesh said the Supreme Court later cancelled the allotment and heavily condemned the state Govt. for the same.

Ramesh accused Naidu of keeping a land, meant for the landless and poor in Andhra Pradesh's Nellore.

"Is it not true that on August 7 2002, Venkaiah Naidu had to return a land of five acres in Nellore district? He had to return the land to the district administration, as it was for the landless", he said.

Naidu had got the land in 1978 when he was a MLA.

Ramesh pointed that if, Naidu speaks of transparency and accountability, then he should answer all these questions.