Janagaon BRS MLA Muthireddy’s daughter says she’ll return land grabbed by dad

HYDERABAD: Troubles haunting Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) Janagaon MLA Muthireddy Yadagiri Reddy in the form of his daughter Tulja Bhavani Reddy seem never-ending.

With elections round the corner, the legislator faced fresh ignominy in public with his daughter accusing him of registering a piece of government land in Cheriyal town in her name and announcing to return it to the municipality on Sunday.

In a sensational claim on Saturday, Tulja Bhavani Reddy, whose relations with her father, a two-time MLA of Jangaon, have strained in the recent past, put up a billboard in Cheriyal asking the people of the town to pardon her for her father’s folly. She also made arrangements to return the 1,270 square yards of government land allegedly encroached and registered in her name by her father to the district authorities. The move, which caused ripples in the district political circles, is also being seen as a political stunt aimed at putting the MLA in a spot of bother and enhancing her public image ahead of the impending elections in the State.

Accusing her father of registering the ‘Mathadi’ (lake bed) land in survey number 1402 in her name by forging her signature, Bhavani Reddy said that she would return the land to the District Collector through court proceedings, thus saving the land from further litigations.

“As a senior legislator, my father, who is 70 years old, should not have done this. I am correcting the mistake that my father has made by returning the land to the Cheriyal municipality. Please forgive us,” she told the media on Saturday standing at the disputed plot.

She said that her father, who had amassed properties worth over Rs 1,000 crore and had been receiving a monthly rent of Rs 1.5 crore from them, should not have grabbed the government land. “I am returning it now,” the MLA’s daughter told the media. She came to know that the land was registered in her name way back in January 2020 without her knowledge only after it fell into litigation in July 2022.

“Even my signatures on the ‘Vakalatnamas’ that were submitted to the courts and Lokayukta were all forged,” Tulja Bhavani Reddy claimed. She alleged that her father, being a senior politician in the State, managed to get the land registered in her name even without her physical presence at the local registrar’s office. She also had a notice board erected at the site saying that the land was encroached by her father and that she was returning the same to the people of the town.

However, Muthireddy Yadagiri Reddy refuted all her allegations and said that the land his daughter was talking about was in fact a ‘patta’ land and not government land as she was claiming. “However, it is in her name. She is the owner of the land and she can do whatever she wants to do,” the MLA said. The senior ruling party leader saw a nefarious plan by opposition parties to defame him by pitting his daughter and son-in-law Rahul Reddy against him.

Earlier in May 2023, Tulja Bhavani Reddy lodged a complaint against her father at Uppal police station in Hyderabad alleging that he had leased a commercial property of hers to a bank by forging her signatures.