Reiterating that the state government has no intention of encroaching on University of Hyderabad (UoH) land, Information Technology (IT) & Industries Minister D Sridhar Babu dismissed the Bharat Rashtra Samithi's (BRS) claims of protecting the land if voted back to power as "nothing but a joke”.
Speaking to the media, he said, "BRS leaders are misleading students, using them as pawns for political gains. Through fabricated images and manipulated videos, they are attempting to provoke unrest on social media."
Emphasising the need for industrial growth, the minister stated, "The state's youth deserve opportunities, not obstacles. Attempts to hinder industrial progress through false propaganda are nothing short of a conspiracy to deny employment to Telangana's young men and women."
Sridhar Babu asserted that the land is under the full legal ownership of the government, a fact upheld by both the Telangana High Court and the Supreme Court. He recalled that the land was initially allocated to a private company by the previous TDP government, but it was the Congress government that later revoked the decision and safeguarded it, stated a report by The New Indian Express.
"If BRS truly cared, why were they silent about this land for 10 years? Instead of protecting public resources, they handed over lands in the surrounding areas to benamis. Their sudden activism today is nothing but political theatrics," he said.
The minister also accused the BRS of hypocrisy, pointing to its track record on environmental conservation. He claimed that during its tenure, BRS oversaw the destruction of 4,28,437 acres of forest land and cleared 7,829 acres of forest for the Kaleshwaram project.
"Between 2016 and 2019, Telangana ranked among the top three states for deforestation, with 12,12,753 trees cut down, as per a written response in Parliament. BRS uprooted thousands of trees in Warangal for their public meetings. They demolished massive government buildings covering 28 acres and destroyed nearly 1,000 century-old trees to construct a 'New Secretariat’," he alleged, according to the report by The New Indian Express.
Criticising the BRS’ stance, he said, "They are not fighting for UoH lands, students or environmental conservation. Their goal is to disrupt development, stall industries and create unrest. They must abandon their anti-progress mindset and align with public aspirations instead of resorting to lies and deceit."
