From Our Special Correspondent
Daijiworld Media Network - Bengaluru
Bengaluru, Nov 7: Leaders of ruling Congress party and the opposition BJP in Karnataka had a field day over a slug fest over the land denotifications during their respective regimes.
Congress leaders went to town by declaring that not even an inch of land has been denotifiedby the Siddaramaiah government and accused the BJP of trying to destabilise Siddaramaiah government by misusing the office of the Governor with false allegations against Siddaramaiah government.
Congress leaders have challenged the BJP leadership to place all the records in its possession before the Judicial Commission constituted by the state government to probe the issue, if the saffron outfit is really interested in exposing the truth.
Addressing a joint press conference Congress leaders BL Shankar, H M Revanna, V S Ugrappa and Ashok Pattan dismissed the BJP report accusing the Siddaramaiah government of denotifying 707 acres of land in Arkavathy layout by flouting rules as a bundle of lies to mislead the people.
The immediate provocation for the Congress leaders to indulge in a slanging match against the BJP was the report of the fact-finding committee headed by former minister S Suresh Kumar. ''Strangely, the BJP leaders have submitted copies of the report to Governor VajubhaiVala," the Congress leaders said.
''After being thrown out of power, the BJP leaders are feeling like fish out of water and hatching conspiracies to destabilise the Siddaramaiah regime," the Congress leaders said and alleged that the BJP leaders are galvanised because the NarendraModi-led BJP regime at the Centre has appointed their partymanVajubhaiVala as the Governor of Karnataka.
''The BJP leaders are under the illusion that they can misuse the office of the new Governor through the party eport to malign the Siddaramaiah government," they said and pointed out that they had never tried to misuse Raj Bhavan to settle political scores.
''The BJP leaders have met the Governor 3 or 4 times within 3 months of VajubhaiVala assuming office in Raj Bhavan," Ugrappa alleged.
Ugrappa and H M Revanna tried to turn the tables against BJP by stating that "not even an inch of land has been denotified by the Siddaramaiah government illegally. Whatever lands that have been denotified by the Siddaramaiah government was in fact recommended for denotification during the earlier H D Kumaraswamy, B S Yeddyurappa and JagadishShettar regimes."
The Congress leaders also said that all the lands denotified by the Siddaramaiah government were done as per the recommendation of the Special Land Acquisition Officers in accordance with the court directions. So there is no question of violating any rules, they claimed.
Retaliating against the BJP allegation that 707 acres of land had been denotified illegally after Siddaramaiah government came to power, Revanna and Ugrappa said total extent of land denotified in the proposed Arkavathy layout during the period from 2006 to 2014 was in fact 983 acres.
Giving a break up of the denotifications of land under the different previous regimes, the Congress leaders said HD Kumaraswamy government denotified 140 acresin August 2006, another 16.22 acres were denotified in September 2007.
This was followed by denotification of another 78 acres by HD Kumaraswamy government, 73 acres by B S Yeddyurappa government and 47 acres during the regime of Governor Rameshwar Thakur. Thus, by 2010 about 355 acres were left out of the acquisition process.