Congress Finds One More Place To Park Responsibility

Revenue Minister Ponguleti Srinivas Reddy began with an apology to property owners caught in Telangana’s Section 22-A prohibited-land mess. Then he reached the Assembly and discovered the more traditional Congress remedy: blame the previous BRS government.

This is the current administration’s emerging model of governance. Accept responsibility before lunch, outsource it by evening. The state said that, as of August 30, 1,02,05,250 acres remained on the prohibited list, including 96,36,777 acres of government land and 3,73,980 acres of private agricultural land. The minister’s defence was that the list had shrunk by 47,440 acres since Congress took office. A property owner whose land cannot be sold, registered or used may now take comfort from knowing that the spreadsheet is improving.

The government says wrongly listed private land is being removed and the records are being cleaned up. Fine. But the political question raised by BRS leader Harish Rao remains sitting in the middle of the room: how many acres were added after Congress came to power, and who authorised those additions? The published figures establish the scale of the freeze. They do not establish responsibility for each parcel. That missing answer is not a technical footnote; it is the entire administrative drama.

“Praja Palana” was sold as a reset. Instead, citizens are being offered a three-part service: their property is blocked, their complaint is converted into a legacy issue, and the government presents a reduction in the blockage as a performance certificate. The previous BRS government can and should answer for any errors made during its tenure. But Congress did not campaign to become the curator of inherited excuses. It campaigned to govern.

More than one crore acres remain on the list. The land is still prohibited. The explanation has already been released.