Published Sep 13, 2026 | 11:58 AM ⚊ Updated Sep 13, 2026 | 12:00 PM
Minister Ponguleti Srinivasa Reddy (screengrab)
Telangana Revenue Minister Ponguleti Srinivas Reddy, during an Assembly discussion on September 12, defended the government’s handling of the Section 22-A prohibited properties list. The minister tabled records and data to rebut BRS and BJP charges that the Congress administration had arbitrarily increased the list of properties barred from registration.
Ponguleti told the House that the system predates the current government, having been in operation since 2007 and continuing through a decade of BRS rule. He said the extent of land under Section 22-A had actually fallen from 1,02,52,690 acres in December 2023 to 1,02,05,250 acres by August 2026, while registration revenue had risen by Rs 1,359 crore during the same five-month period this year.
He said the errors arose from the digitised 22-A data in December 2025 due to irregularities carried forward from older land records inherited by the government. He said that, following directions from the High Court, the errors had been rectified.
A widely quoted figure of 40,000 additions in Yadadri Bhuvanagiri, he clarified, referred to house plots rather than acres. He said the figure was the result of a data-entry error and had since been corrected.
Ponguleti then turned the charge around, alleging that government, assigned and Bhoodan lands had been irregularly freed from restrictions under the previous BRS government. He cited cases in Sikindlapur, Shankar Hills, Munaganur and Vattinagulapally in Ranga Reddy district.
The minister named BRS MLAs Palla Rajeshwar Reddy and Gangula Kamalakar, as well as senior BRS leader Harish Rao’s father-in-law, as having benefited from such transfers. He claimed that close to 30 acres of Bhoodan land at Vattinagulapally had lost its classification despite a High Court status quo order.
The Assembly was adjourned until September 16.
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BRS MLA Palla Rajeshwar Reddy rejected the charge as false at a press meet on the same day. He dared Minister Ponguleti to prove the allegation or said he would quit politics.
Rajeshwar Reddy said he owns only 1 acre and 10 guntas of land at Vattinagulapally, which he bought under an agreement signed before Telangana’s formation and registered in June 2014. He shared documentation and a 2008 no-objection certificate from the AP Bhoodan Yagna Board, which states that the land was never donated to it.
Reddy had already cited the certificate in a writ petition filed in the Telangana High Court in May this year, seeking protection from official interference with his possession of the same plot. He further claimed that after he declined to sell the land to a person who was allegedly acting on behalf of the minister, it was placed on the 22-A list within a fortnight. He called it an attempt to exert pressure.
BRS deputy floor leader Harish Rao accused Ponguleti of blaming the past instead of fixing a deadline or apologising to affected families. He also defended his father-in-law’s land, saying it was a 1995 allotment that was regularised and compensated for under Congress rule itself, not the BRS government.
(Edited by Fayisa CA)
