Jagan defends land allotments done by YSR Govt

 Maintaining that Y S Rajasekhar Reddy's regime made land allotments for employment generation purposes, Kadapa MP Jaganmohan Reddy has asked why the CBI did not look into the allotment of lands made during the previous TDP rule.

Reacting to the CBI chargesheet filed in the illegal assets case involving him, Jagan, while speaking at his 'Odarpu Yatra' here last night, defended the land allotments during his late father's regime.

"The lands were allotted to private companies in backward Mahaboobnagar and Medak districts to generate large scale employment," he said.

"Why the CBI cannot see the land allocation in the heart of Hyderabad made by TDP chief N Chandrababu Naidu at throw away prices and also during the present Congress government," he asked.

Meanwhile, unfazed by the developments in the case involving him, Jagan is going ahead with campaign in Assembly segments where bypolls will be held.

He is scheduled to tour Narsapuram and Polavaram constituencies in West Godavari district from today. These two assembly seats are among the 17 constituencies where the by-elections are due.

The bypolls in 16 of the 17 seats are necessitated by the disqualification of Congress MLAs who switched loyalty to Jagan and voted against the Congress government in a floor test held in December last year, while another MLA quit in support of Kadapa MP.

Mamata Banerjee will skip inauguration ceremony of NSG hub today

A day after opposing the proposed National Counter Terrorism Centre (NCTC) along with six other chief ministers, Mamata Banerjee will on today skip the inauguration ceremony of a National Security Guards (NSG) hub near here.

The NSG hub at Badu in North 24 Parganas district will be inaugurated by Home Minister P Chidambaram, who had mooted the idea to set up an anti-terror intelligence hub, named NCTC.

The development comes as another setback to the Congress-TMC alliance which has been going through a rough patch for quite some time.

Banerjee on Friday, along with her counterparts from Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Bihar, Odisha and Tamil Nadu, came out against a the setting up of NCTC from March 1, saying such a powerful body would infringe upon the rights of states.

In Andhra Pradesh, TDP chief N Chandrababu Naidu also spoke out against the anti-terror body.

The Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government tried to play down the issue, with Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee saying a decision would be taken after studying the criticism.

Led by the most vocal Naveen Patnaik of Odisha, the chief ministers declared that they were against the NCTC because they had not been consulted before New Delhi notified it.

In separate letters to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, six of them complained that the proposed NCTC would infringe on the federal structure and the rights of state governments.

The powerful anti-terror agency, a brainchild of Chidambaram, will integrate and analyse inputs on terror threats in India. It becomes functional on March 1.

It allows Central government agencies to make arrests or searches in terrorism-hit states without seeking permission from their governments.