Hyderabad, April 26 (INN): Former minister P Shankar Rao on Thursday suspected the involvement of Chief Minister's brother Santosh Kumar Reddy in the reduction of Value Added Tax.

Talking to media persons at the Congress Legislature Party Office, P Shankar Rao stated that Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy, who earlier opposed to reduction of VAT on textile merchants, suddenly withdrew his stand and reduced VAT. Alleging that a big scam to the tune of Rs 100 crore took place in the reduction of VAT, he demanded that the government order CBI probe into the entire issue.

Dr Shankar Rao said that the CBI should probe into issue would come out with complete facts and persons behind the reduction of VAT.

Alleging that many irregularities took place in the implementation of Rajiv Vidya Mission, he said that genuine students were not getting the benefits of the scheme. Stating that he has wrote a letter to the Chief Minister, Chief Secretary and ACB, he appealed to government to order probe into the issue and take serious action on the responsible for irregularities. The former minister also alleged that the officials have not followed the norms in the allotment of lands to private firms in Hyderabad. Alleging that the lands were allotted at nominal rates during stint of former Hyderabad Collector Naveen Mittal and Revenue Divisional Officer Ratna Kumari, he said that the decision of officials had caused huge loss to State's exchequer and demanded CBI probe into the issue. He appealed to the government to recover those lands from private firms immediately.

Dr Shankar Rao also stated that thousands of acres of lands belonging to the government and Wakf Board at Chillakur mandal in Nellore district was allotted to influential persons by violating norms. He demanded that the Chief Minister order a probe into the issue. He said that the government should go to by-elections after getting clean chit from these allegations. (INN)