Mopidevi resigns, Governor accepts

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Excise minister Mopidevi Venkataramana handed over his resignation letter to the Governor E.S.L. Narasimhan on Thursday, after he was formally informed about his arrest by the CBI and was taken to the CBI court. Governor accepted his resignation.

In the letter, Mr Venkata ramana has stated that he followed whatever late chief minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy ordered him to do while signing on the relevant GOs on Vanpic lands. .

The letter stated that the relevant files pertaining to the issue of GOs did not come to him directly, but he was specifically called by the late chief minister to his chambers and it was upon his and his secretary’s instructions that he signed on the files. “What I have done was in good faith and I followed the leader’s (YSR) instructions all through,” he stated. “I did not take any decision on my own. I belong to the most backward fishermen’s community and worked with principles of honesty and integrity,” he said.

Referring to recent developments surrounding various scams, Mr Venkata-ramana said, “GO No. 29, or for that matter, any other issues concerning the port, I never took full responsibility or committed any mistake. If anyone goes through the relevant note files and GOs, it will be clear.” He said, he had now decided to quit his minister’s post with the hope that his name would be cleared in the CBI probe and he could rejoin the Cabinet.

Mopidevi used force to acquire land for Vanpic
Excise minister Mopidevi Venkataramana, arrested by CBI and remanded to police custody by a CBI court on Thursday, saw his political career set sail when he became Nizampatnam Mandal Parishath president in 1987. Having contested and bitten the dust in the 1989 and 1994 Assembly elections, Mr Venkataramana created a hat-trick by winning the Assembly polls in 1999, 2004 and 2009. Inducted in the Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy Cabinet in 2004, he was made the ports and infrastructure development minister, primarily because he was the only MLA from the fishermen’s community.

As the infrastructure minister, Mr Venkataramana allegedly extended many concessions against the rules to Vanpic Ports Private Limited. He reportedly threatened farmers and forcibly acquired about 5,400 acres for Vanpic. There are also allegations that Mr Venkataramana and his brother M. Harinath Babu threatened farmers and forcibly acquired their lands in Repalle Assembly segment.

Besides allegedly duping farmers by paying them a compensation amount of only Rs 2 lakh, there are also charges that Vanpic hiked land values in the records to get bank loans, allegedly with Mr Venkataramana’s blessings. In this connection, CBI officials recently visited Repalle, Nizampat-nam, Nagaram, Karlapalem and Bapatla mandals, where farmers complained that they were shortchanged by the company in terms of compensation for their land, according to information. The CBI officials have filed a chargesheet against Mr Venkataramana for irregularities by passing unjust Government Orders and for violating rules and allocated lands to Vanpic.

The CBI has also questioned the then district collector, Mr B. Venkatesam, in the Vanpic land acquisition case. When Mr Venkataramana was subsequently made the excise minister, he allegedly acquired some liquor shops at rates lower than prescribed. Mr Nunna Venkata Ramana, a liquor trader in Khammam district, allegedly claimed to have paid Rs 10 lakh in bribe to the then minister in return for a favour.