TRS chief and Telangana Chief Minister K.Chandrasekhar Rao sacked health minister Etela Rajender from his cabinet in May on charges of encroaching assigned lands and temple lands.
KCR devised a ‘perfect sketch’ to target Etela. First, his channel T-news telecasted a series of news reports on Etela’a land grabbing soon after polling for municipal elections ended on April 30 this year.
Within a day on May 2, KCR took away health portfolio from Etela and made him a minister without portfolio. Again the very next day, he removed Etela from his cabinet. KCR did not stop with this.
He appointed two inquiry committees one headed by Chief Secretary and Siddipet collector and another comprising of senior IAS officers.
These IAS officers surveyed Etela’s huge land parcels of his poultry farms within hours on a war footing and submitted reports to CS and CMO stating that Etela encroached assigned lands and temple lands for his poultry farms.
When everything was set to arrest Etela and send him to jail, Etela approached courts and obtained stay orders on inquiry. Later, he realized that KCR will not stop political vendetta with court stay orders and to protect himself he joined BJP in June.
After Etela joined BJP, there is no talk about inquiry into Etela’s land dealings although High Court later stated that the government can go ahead with the investigation.
Now Etela trounced TRS in Huzurabad bypoll and became an MLA. Etela became even more powerful and his influence at union home minister Amit Shah level has increased with his victory in the bypoll.
Now KCR will not dare to touch Etela at this stage. With this, all the inquiry reports on Etela’s land dealings are gathering dust in Chief Minister’s Office (CMO).
