Revanth’s Land Solution: Freeze Citizens, Fund Committees
The government has discovered that a property crisis becomes manageable once it is renamed a political investigation.
Telangana’s 22-A land mess has finally met the administrative genius of the Revanth Reddy government. The solution is not a clearance mechanism, a time-bound appeal process or immediate relief for owners unable to sell, mortgage or register their property. It is a committee to inquire into alleged land irregularities involving K. Chandrashekar Rao, K.T. Rama Rao, T. Harish Rao and other BRS leaders.
This is Praja Palana with the public removed from the title deed. On September 23, the government formally constituted the panel after Revanth Reddy’s Assembly speech ordering an inquiry into lands around KCR’s Erravalli farmhouse. The inquiry may be entirely justified. If evidence shows wrongdoing, pursue it through law. An inquiry is not a conviction, however, no matter how enthusiastically the microphones are arranged. The government appears to have grasped the first half of that sentence and misplaced the second.
Meanwhile, the ordinary landowner remains trapped in the prohibited list. Revanth promised a “permanent solution” to Section 22-A; what arrived first was a permanent-looking political serial. The citizen’s property stays frozen while the government’s press machinery moves at remarkable speed. Registration offices can wait. Opposition leaders cannot. Telangana’s land problem has been transferred from the revenue department to the prime-time department.
KTR’s counter-offer was no less theatrical: deposit ₹1 lakh crore into the accounts of Telangana’s poor, he challenged Revanth, and he would transfer his family’s land and assets. Congress brought the committee; BRS brought impossible arithmetic. Between the two, citizens received the traditional bipartisan benefit package: one headline each and no registration. The BRS is entitled to defend itself, but a challenge involving ₹1 lakh crore is not a substitute for answering specific questions. Nor is a committee a substitute for releasing land that can legally be released.
The government may eventually prove its case. Until then, it has achieved one verifiable result: the committee has been constituted, and the land is still frozen.
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