HYDERABAD: The state government has allotted new Toyota Land Cruiser vehicles, purchased by the earlier BRS administration, to Cabinet ministers, official sources said.
22 vehicles were purchased by the previous BRS government at Rs 3 crore each in 2023 before the Assembly elections and they shifted to a company near Vijayawada that fits the vehicles with bulletproof glass windshields.
The issue of BRS government purchasing these vehicles came to light after the party lost power and Congress government was formed in December 2023. Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy disclosed this issue to the media while addressing a press conference at Secretariat on December 27.
Revanth Reddy said, “After I assumed charge as CM, I told officials not to buy vehicles for me as part of CM’s convoy. The officials then told me that the previous government bought 22 Land Cruisers and kept them in Vijayawada. I didn’t even know about it until 10 days after I became CM. They told me that BRS government wanted to bring them from Vijayawada after KCR’s swearing-in.” That never came to be as the BRS lost the polls.
Revanth Reddy said he was surprised when officials informed him about the vehicles. “Each vehicle costs Rs 3 crore because they are bulletproof. This is how KCR has created wealth for the state,” he had commented sarcastically then.
