The Kanch-Gachibowli land grab scandal, now under the national spotlight, has rattled even the corridors of Delhi. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, addressing a rally in Yamuna Nagar, didn’t mince words: “In Telangana, the Congress government has abandoned its promises and is busy running bulldozers over forests, wrecking the environment and threatening wildlife. That’s the Congress model — destroy, loot, and deny.” A brutal but accurate summary.
What began as a local scandal has now snowballed into a legal and political crisis. The Supreme Court was compelled to intervene, demanding that the Congress-led state government submit a restoration plan for the trees it mercilessly felled in its greed-driven haste to make forest land ‘market-ready’. This is not governance — it’s gangsterism with government seals.
Post the passage of the Waqf Act, Congress, aided by its usual cabal — select Muslim groups, communists, and pseudo-secular elites — has ramped up propaganda. But this time, the tables seem to be turning. Revanth Reddy’s regime is caught in a self-dug pit. For a month now, the Congress government is squirming under the pressure of its own actions. Ironically, even the BRS — itself no saint — is now capitalising on this to expose Congress’ double-dealing.
Congress seems determined to turn Telangana into its ideological laboratory — a breeding ground for disastrous experiments in vote-bank politics, corruption, and reckless urbanisation. West Hyderabad, once barren, has now become one of the most valuable real estate hubs in India. From Hitech City outward, the land is more precious than gold. But Congress sees this as nothing more than a golden goose to pluck, plunder and privatise.
This mess didn’t appear overnight. The financial wreckage left by the KCR-led BRS regime set the stage. Telangana, once a surplus state, was saddled with Rs 7 lakh crore debt under BRS misrule. Congress, instead of correcting course, followed suit with unrealistic promises to grab power — and now finds itself writhing like a lizard stuck in a crack.
Keeping in view the movement that took place in Telangana after 1970 and recognising the aspirations of the people here, then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, in 1973, established a Central University in Hyderabad through special laws and a constitutional amendment, and allocated 2300 acres of land for it. Over the years, successive governments allowed parts of this land to be used for educational and research institutions — not for profiteering. However, in 2004, under TDP, 400 acres went to IMG Academies Bharat Pvt. Ltd., a decision later reversed by YSR’s Congress government in 2005. But now, the same Congress seems to be crawling back into bed with the same private entity it once ousted — a typical Congress-style U-turn when there’s money on the table.
There’s credible talk of shady backroom deals, with IMG trying to regain access to the land via unofficial, quid-pro-quo arrangements. Government insiders may be eyeing personal profits over public good. The defence? That it isn’t university land. But official inspections say otherwise — this is Central University land, and Congress is trying to steal it from under the nose of the people.
Environmentalists, professors, scientists, and students are raising a red flag. They’ve taken to the streets in protest — met not with dialogue, but with police brutality and lathi-charges. The Congress government is responding to democratic dissent with colonial suppression. As scrutiny increased, even the Supreme Court had to intervene and rebuke the state.
The question staring Telangana in the face: is the government here to protect the environment or to sell it off plot by plot? Across India’s metros, reckless development is choking cities. Hyderabad is next. Usman Sagar and Gandipet reservoirs — lifelines of the city — are already dying. Patancheru to Sangareddy is poisoned with industrial pollutants. And in this apocalyptic setting, the Congress government wants to axe what little green cover remains?
If land allocation to IMG was truly so crucial, why not pick from the thousands of acres of encroached or unused government lands elsewhere in Telangana? Why target prime university land and sabotage education and environment in one shot? It reeks of agenda and greed. Congress’ policies are pushing Hyderabad down the path of Delhi’s pollution crisis.
Remember the Secretariat built under BRS at Hussain Sagar? An unnecessary vanity project. That environmental mistake will haunt Hyderabad for decades. Now, the Congress is going down the same path of arrogance. No lessons learned — just arrogance layered over incompetence.
Even the Supreme Court lashed out, warning that continuing on this path might force authorities to build jails on the same lands — poetic justice for the corrupt. The Court is considering orders to stop the felling of a single tree across hundreds of acres — a clear slap to the face of the Congress regime.
Meanwhile, the government claimed it had cleared only 165 “small trees” and used no heavy machinery. But the CEC’s report told a different tale — of rule violations, tree destruction, and even demolition of stone structures. The land, it confirmed, belongs to HCU. Yet, Congress continues to act like the law doesn’t apply to it.
In another shocking development, Congress party observer Meenakshi Natarajan reportedly discussed these lands inside the official Secretariat — a move many see as humiliating to the CM himself. If party functionaries are running the government from behind the curtain, what remains of democracy?
Congress, like BRS before it, is treating education as a business. Instead of investing in state universities, it’s choking them while greenlighting private universities — conveniently owned by its MLAs. Public institutions are being allowed to die a slow death.
KCR’s decade-long reign destroyed state universities. He went ten years without appointing even a single assistant professor. The lone Group 1 notification under his rule ended in disaster. Now, Congress continues the legacy of decay. A year into power, Revanth Reddy’s government is yet to act on basic university appointments.
Even at Osmania University, VCs are issuing controversial diktats against students. The Congress government seems to be strangling student voices — and its own future — in one stroke.
And yet, amid this darkness, Hyderabad Central University has stood tall — ranked among India’s top institutions by NAAC, maintaining world-class standards. The current movement by students and citizens may have saved it for now — but the threat is far from over.
This land issue has become a noose around the neck of the Congress government. Whether it drowns in it or survives by changing course — only time will tell. But one thing is certain: the people of Telangana will not forgive those who loot their land, wreck their environment, and sell off their future in backroom deals.
The Congress government under Revanth Reddy seems determined to plunder every last inch of public land, not for development, not for public welfare, but to bankroll its reckless freebie culture and keep its collapsing exchequer afloat — a classic Congress template of loot-and-survive. Instead of generating sustainable revenue or investing in genuine social upliftment, the focus remains on short-term vote bank politics. The Kanch-Gachibowli land scam is not an isolated instance — it is merely the tip of a much larger, submerged Congress iceberg. As public scrutiny rises and the political tides turn, many more such murky episodes are bound to surface, exposing the rot beneath this so-called governance.
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