Im being ignored, says Shankar Rao

HYDERABAD: Stating that he heard that chief minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy had directed the officials to ignore him, handlooms and textiles minister P Shankar Rao on Friday said he would also ignore it. Addressing a media conference in the Secretariat, Rao said the God only could save the state if the ‘present situation’ continues.There was no response from the DCP concerned to his plea for action against a rowdysheeter, who is harassing people of his Secunderabad Cantonment constituency, he said.“Some of my wellwishers told me that the chief minister had directed the officials to ignore me. If that is the case, I will also ignore it,” he said.It is learnt that Rao is not happy with the chief minister for the latter's ‘failure’ to respond to his letter written on August 16, 2011 relating to land allotment. The Cabinet recently approved allotment of 35 acres of land to Continental Multimodal Terminals Limited at Timmapur village in Mahabubnagar district which he strongly objected.In his letter, Rao deplored allotment of land at a ‘throwaway price’ of Rs 6 lakh to Rs 9 lakh per acre to the company though its market rate was `1 crore per acre.