Government attached Chandrababu Naidu’s guest house

Vijayawada: The state government is now embroiled in a new controversy over the alleged quid pro quo in the inner ring road project which is part of Amaravati master plan.

The state CID on Sunday alleged that the then chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu had shown undue favour to Lingamaneni family and in return got the guest house owned by Lingamaneni Ramesh as gratification and attached the guest house which has been under occupation of Naidu since 2014.

The attachment was based on GO No 80 issued by Home Department. It stated that the attachment of the property was made under the charges of offences involving conspiracy, criminal breach of trust, cheating, criminal misconduct by public servants. The government claims that the house was illegal gratification and kept at the disposal of Naidu on free of cost basis as quid- pro-quo for the gains which accrued from the alignment of the inner Ring Road and the zonal development plans for Katheru, Kaza and Namburu villages of Guntur district.

The order gave authorisation to the investigation officer for filing an application before the Court of Special Judge for SPE & ACB cases, Vijayawada for attachment of immovable property under the criminal law amendment ordinance, 1944 (Ordinance No XXXVIII of 1994).

A case was also registered charging A-1 N Chandrababu Naidu, the then Chief Minister and A-2 P Narayana, the then Minister for Municipal administration and Urban Development. The TDP which is now contemplating to take recourse to legal action claims that this was an attempt of the government to divert that attention of the people from the likely arrest of its MP Avinash Reddy who is a cousin of CM Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy.

The party leaders said the guest house was owned by Lingamaneni Ramesh and Naidu had taken it on rent and continues to pay rent for which he has proper receipts as well. They also said that the YSRCP had scrapped the inner ring road project soon after it came to power even before it took off.

They further say that the Lingamaneni family lost 14 acres of land due to inner ring road alignment. The lands of Lingamaneni are at a distance of 4 to 10 km from proposed inner ring road and hence there was no possibility of any undue benefit shown to Lingamaneni.