Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao's plans to build houses for poor over the land of Osmania University has snowballed into a huge row with students staging protests and the opposition parties warning him against the move.
The students of Osmania University on Wednesday took out a rally and even performed mock funeral of the chief minister to protest his plans to take the university land.
Rao's remark that universities don't require huge lands and that he will not budge an inch from his stand added fuel to the fire.
Raising slogans against the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) chief, the students took out a rally on the campus. Activists of Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) performed a mock funeral of the chief minister.
The student groups have also called for shutdown of educational institutions in Telangana on Thursday to protest the government's plans.
KCR, as Rao is popularly known, during his visit to Parsigutta area in Secunderabad on Monday, had declared that houses for poor will be built on 11 acres unused land of Osmania University.
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This triggered protests by student groups, who took to streets and even staged a demonstration at state secretariat.
They recalled that KCR, during the movement for separate Telangana state, had said that thousands of acres of land in and around Hyderabad was grabbed by industrialists and other rich people from Andhra. They challenged him to take back those lands and build houses for poor.
KCR plans to build two bedroom houses for 200,000 poor in Hyderabad and has asked officials to identify the vacant government lands for the same.
Main opposition Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have also asked KCR to drop his plans to take OU land.
Congress leader Mohammed Ali Shabbir on Wednesday urged the chief minister to construct houses for poor on the vacant land adjacent to his camp office and also on the land allotted for TRS headquarters.
Shabbir, who is vice president of party's Telangana unit, also offered to identify more lands required for the scheme but warned the government against touching the varsity's land.
BJP leader N. Janardhan Reddy said KCR should keep in mind that students of the varsity were always in the forefront of agitation for a separate Telangana state and it was because of them that he is today sitting in the chief minister's chair.
The chief minister, however, said he would not budge even an inch from his stand. He made it clear that he will not bow to the students' pressure.
"If I take up something, I don't leave it in middle and pursue it till it is achieved. I am very stubborn person," he told a meeting during ongoing "Swacch Hyderabad" programme.
He alleged that some parties were playing petty politics when he is trying to provide housing to the poor.
KCR also remarked that universities don't need hundreds and thousands of acres when poor people did not have space for homes.