Hyderabad: The newly sworn in Telugu Desam Party (TDP) government in Andhra Pradesh on Saturday (June 22) razed an under-construction building of the YSR Congress at Guntur district’s Tadepalli and sent a notice to another party building in Visakhapatnam.
In both cases, it was said the constructions were carried out without permissions.
At Visakhapatnam, the municipal corporation has given the YSR Congress a week’s time from June 22 to explain how it completed the building construction without permission. It warned of further action if no response was received before the deadline.
The demolition of YSR Congress’s office at Tadepalli, carried out early in the morning, is a grim reminder of a similar action taken by the party against TDP president N. Chandrababu Naidu when it assumed power in 2019.
Within days of coming to power, the YSR Congress president and former Chief Minister Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy had ordered that Praja Vedika, a convention hall constructed by Naidu during his tenure as the chief minister, be pulled down as it did not have the required permits.
The hall, constructed on the banks of river Krishna near Naidu’s residence at Undavalli in Guntur district, was used for meetings and hearing public grievances. Naidu urged the government to treat the hall as the annexe of his residence but his plea went unheeded.
Barely 10 days into the fresh innings with Naidu at the helm now, the TDP government razed the building meant to house YSR’s central office while its second floor was under construction.
The demolition by Mangalagiri-Tadepalli Municipal Corporation (MTMC), conducted with excavators and bulldozers while police stood guard at 5 AM, followed intense activity between the two sides.
The YSR Congress approached the high court on Friday to challenge the preliminary action of the Andhra Pradesh Capital Region Development Authority (APCRDA), which had served a notice to the district party president for constructing a building without permission. Although the deadline to respond lapsed on June 17, the APCRDA received an email from the president thereafter, which was disregarded.
The APCRDA then ordered the MTMC to pull down the building but the high court stayed the action. The court order was conveyed to the commissioner of APCRDA by a lawyer, the party said in a statement.
Interestingly, the MTMC had issued a show cause notice to YSR Congress on the illegality of its construction at Mangalagiri on May 20 last month when the party was still in power. Also, the same APCRDA had constructed and ordered the demolition of Praja Vedika at Undavalli.
The YSR Congress had acquired two acre lands, at Mangalagiri and Visakhapatam respectively, on sanction of lease for 33 years at a nominal rate of Rs 1,000 per acre per annum by Collectors. The land at Mangalagiri which belonged to the irrigation department was meant to be a boat yard.
The irrigation department had not given its permission and neither had the APCRDA, MTMC and revenue department allowed the land to be handed over to YSR Congress. The party had not even applied for a building plan with the MTMC.
The TDP district president P. Srinivasa Rao highlighted this in his complaint to APCRDA which sent the ball rolling.
After the demolition at Mangalagiri, Jagan took to X saying the demolition exposed the vendetta politics of Naidu. By carrying his urge for violence and bloodshed to the next level, he displayed a glimpse of the functioning of the government in the next five years. Like a dictator, he got the party office demolished. Jagan also said he will not be cowed down by such threats or intimidation. He will wage a determined struggle against the government.
Jagan maintained that the YSR Congress believed that the APCRDA’s action qualified as a contempt of court.
The TDP, in a sharp rebuttal, said Jagan had resorted to land grabbing and usurped the land of poor fishermen instead of building a water treatment plant as proposed at the site. “Should we ignore construction of your palaces after taking away lands of people by grabbing and encroachments,” the party said in a release in reference to another controversy against Jagan over construction of palatial buildings at the picturesque Rishikonda in Visakhapatnam.
The notice pasted on YSR Congress’s office at Visakhapatnam said the party did not have permission from Greater Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation to take up construction in Yendada area. The party applied for permission from the Visakhapatnam Metropolitan Regional Development Authority instead of the municipal corporation, which is the right authority.
Jagan left for Pulivendula amidst the trouble on Saturday and did not take part in the Assembly proceedings marked by Speaker Ayyana Patrudu taking chair.
