Telangana Minister Eatala Rajender demoted over assigned land grabbing row

Fifty seven-year-old Eatala was sacked from the Council of Minister following a preliminary report on assigned lands grabbing submitted to the government by the Medak district collector Hareesh.

On the advice of the Chief Minister , Telangana Governor Dr. Tamilisai Soundararajan has ‘ dropped Eatala Rajender, Minister from the Council of Minister with immediate effect,” according to a Press Communiqué received from Secretary to Governor K.Surendra Mohan.

On Saturday, the CM removed Eatala from the state Medical and Health portfolio and took over it following the land encroachments allegation leveled against him by the farmers from Achampet and Hakimpet villages in Medak District.

Within hours after receiving the complaint from the farmers, the Chief Minister on Friday ordered a probe into the allegations made by farmers that Eatala had encroached assigned lands for its Jamuna Hatchery firm owned by Eatala’s kin.

According to sources, Medak District Collector said in a report that Minister Eatala Rajender and his family members have encroached 66 acres of assigned land allocated to the poor farmers by the government besides violating  various laws.

Besides encroaching assigned and ceiling land,  Eatala also violated numerous laws including the Telangana Assigned Lands (POT) Act, the Conservation of Forests Act and the Telangana Agricultural Land (Conversion for Non-Agricultural Purposes) Act, among others. Further, they caused losses to the State exchequer, the report stated.

In his six-page preliminary report to the Chief Secretary Somesh Kumar, the collector stated that the field survey conducted by the team observed that about 66 acres of assigned lands in survey number 97 of Hakimpet village and in survey numbers 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82 and 130 of Achampet village were illegally occupied by the hatchery firm.

A road up to half a kilometer was laid by the hatchery on the assigned land and full-grown trees were chopped for the road, the report added.

Eatala, the native of Kamalapur village of Warangal (urban district), who had played an important role in the formation of TRS in 2001, was one of the founder members of the party.

He was elected to Andhra Pradesh Assembly from Kamalapur seat in 2004 and he is the TRS floor leader in the state assembly.

He was also elected to the state assembly from Huzurabad assembly segment  (Karimnagar district) for three times from 2009- 2018.

He was the first Finance Minister of Telangana state from 2014-2018 and he took over as the Minister of Health in 2019.