RTI reply contradicts HR&CE Minister Sekar Babu’s statement about Vadapalani temple property recovery

Last year, DMK HR&CE Minister Sekar Babu announced that the HR&CE department recovered 5.5 acres of land that belonged to the Vadapalani temple, from encroachers. The announcement, which came in the month of June last year, also said that the property was worth ₹250 crores.

However, an RTI from 2019 says something else about this announcement. The RTI clearly mentions that,  this 5.5 acres of property belonging to the Vadapalani temple has been leased for  29 years, dated 22.10.2008. Which means that the DMK government was in power when this land was leased for 29 years.

However, the DMK government might have cut short the period of the lease, last year in June. But, how does that make it the recovery of the land from encroachers? The announcement made by Sekar Babu last year, clearly mentions that the land was recovered from encroachment. However, this land was only leased to some private individual, not encroached. This contradiction now makes us think whether all temple property that the HR&CE has claimed to have recovered after the DMK came to power, were actually recovered from encroachers.

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