BJP believes that dislodging Siddaramaiah would result in splitting his support base, and turn out to be advantageous to the saffron outfit.
Published Aug 05, 2024 | 11:00 AM ⚊ Updated Aug 05, 2024 | 12:03 PM
CM Siddaramaiah (Siddaramiah/Twitter)
After Jharkhand and Delhi CMs – Hemant Soren and Arvind Kejriwal respectively – it is now the turn of their Karnataka counterpart Siddaramaiah to face the heat in alleged scams.
The three belong to different parties but all of them are part of the INDIA bloc alliance, which says that the BJP-led NDA government at the Centre is targeting Opposition CMs, getting them embroiled in legal tangles and sending them (two so far) to jail.
What is the issue involving Siddaramaiah that Karnataka Governor Thawar Chand Gehlot is all set to sanction the prosecution of Karnataka CM and why is the BJP demanding his resignation?
It is the alleged scam in the MUDA (Mysuru Urban Development Authority) transfer of land case, which is turning out to be the biggest test that the CM might be facing in his long and illustrious political career. Land of 3.16 acres, which was gifted to CM’s wife Parvathi by her brother in 2010, was acquired by MUDA to develop a layout. The Authority allocated 14 premium sites to her in Vijayanagar locality in 2022 as compensation, under a 50:50 formula.
As this became public, it set off a massive controversy with the BJP taking it up in a big way both in the street and the legislature session. The party has now launched a ‘padayatra’ from Bengaluru to Mysuru – Mysuru Chalo – to highlight the issue, demanding that the CM resign with the charge that he pressured the officials to allocate sites.
Siddaramaiah challenged this saying he has no role in it since the site allocation was made when the BJP was in power in the state. Thus began the slugfest.
Karnataka governor Thawar Chand Gehlot came into the picture as he, acting on a petition, sent a show cause notice to Siddaramaiah on the alleged scam.
“On perusal of the request, it is seen that the allegations against you are serious in nature and prima facie seem plausible”, he said in his notice. The council of ministers met and asked Gehlot to withdraw the notice. Calling the notice a “gross misuse of the constitutional office”, the ministers said that a “concerted effort is being made to destabilise a lawfully elected government for political considerations.”
Siddaramaiah launched a tirade against the Governor and the Centre, saying that the former was acting like a puppet of the Centre. The notice was “illegal and anti-constitutional”, he said and pointed out that the governor acted “in haste” and “without applying his mind”.
Advocate TJ Abraham had sought consent from the Governor to prosecute Siddaramaiah in the MUDA case. He has also filed a case against Siddaramaiah before the Mysuru Lokayukta police.
Even as the Congress government completed one year in office after a thumping victory in the Assembly elections, it has been caught in twin alleged scams. First is the Valmiki Corporation Scam – the alleged transfer of money amounting to some ₹187 crore belonging to the Maharshi Valmiki Scheduled Tribes Development Corporation Limited to private and other accounts. As the demand rose for his resignation, ST Welfare minister B Nagendra quit – the first wicket in this government to fall. Investigation by Enforcement Directorate in this case is underway. MUDA scam is the second.
These two cases have caused immense embarrassment to the Congress, a party which came to power by charging the then Basavaraj Bommai-led BJP government with corruption. Regarding the MUDA issue, for the first time in his near-five decades of political life, Siddaramaiah is facing questions regarding his personal integrity. Always confident, especially while taking on the rival BJP, Siddaramaiah now looks rattled by the twin charges, one of them hitting him directly. And he is struggling to come out of it.
The present notice looks similar to the one that then chief minister BS Yediyurappa of the BJP faced in 2011. Then Governor HR Bharadwaj gave consent to prosecute the Lingayat strongman in a land denotification case following which he had to quit and undergo three weeks of imprisonment. The Governor’s consent changed the course of Karnataka’s political history.
It is not that Siddaramaiah has taken no action in the land issue. Even as he claimed innocence and that he has no role in land transfer in the MUDA case, he has instituted a judicial probe into the deal; while doing so, he has asked the judicial commission to probe all such deals which took place since 2006.
This means that any action concerning then chief ministers BS Yediyurappa and HD Kumaraswamy would also come into question. Siddaramaiah has charged that former prime minister HD Deve Gowda’s family was benefited by land transfer during the regime of Kumaraswamy as CM.
The twin`scams’ are a godsend for the BJP which had no hand in breaking them. They are out to take full advantage of the irregularities especially because it involves their bete noire Siddaramaiah. The CM, who has emerged as an undisputed leader of the backward classes, is also seen as the icon of ‘Ahinda’, a Kannada acronym for BCs, SCs, STs, and minorities. BJP believes that dislodging Siddaramaiah would result in splitting his support base, which would in turn be advantageous to the saffron outfit.
After Leader of Opposition (LoP) in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi, Siddaramaiah is seen as the fiercest critic of the BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi. BJP had partly lost the support of its strong vote bank – Lingayats to the JD(S) and Vokkaligas to the Congress – in the last year’s Assembly polls but seems to have got them back in a big way, after the recent Lok Sabha elections. Now, the alliance partners want to consolidate on the gains they have made.
But Congress is not taking BJP’s challenge lying down. It has planned a mega public meeting to celebrate Siddaramaiah’s birthday this month through which it wants to send a message to the ‘padayatra’ of the BJP-JD(S). Thus the stage is set for Congress-NDA tussle.
But then, all is not well in the Congress. Though the party is presenting a united face, it is beset with factionalism with Deputy CM and KPCC president DK Shivakumar demanding Siddaramaiah’s chair, though not openly. In the NDA, JD(S) refused to join the padayatra but finally, BJP heaved a sigh of relief as central leaders intervened, following which Kumaraswamy agreed to be a part of it.
BJP too is not without its internal problems. Senior MLAs Basanagouda Patil Yatnal and Ramesh Jarkiholi have stayed out of the padayatra and announced a parallel march to Ballari to highlight the money transfer scandal. It is unlikely that the CM will resign if the Governor accords sanction but he will certainly take up the legal course. In all probability, Karnataka will witness a no-holds-barred confrontation on both legal and political arenas in the weeks to come.
(BS Arun is a senior journalist based out of Bengaluru. Views are personal. Edited by Neena)
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