From Our Special Correspondent
Daijiworld Media Network - Bengaluru
Bengaluru, Oct 10: After targeting Chief Minister Siddaramaiah’s son Dr Yathindra for his involvement in alleged land denotifications scam and receiving a warning of being asked to face a defamation suit, BJP MLC B J Puttaswamy, who is a close confidante of State BJP President B S Yeddyurappa, the BJP leader has now levelled denotifications allegation against Siddaramaiah himself to face another warning of defamation suit.
While the Chief Minister strongly refuted the allegation and warned that he will file defamation suit against Puttaswamy for making false and baseless allegations to tarnish his image in the run up to next year’s assembly elections in Karnataka, Bengaluru Development Minister K J George termed the allegations as "totally baseless and untrue."
"The Siddaramaiah government has not denotified lands legally or illegally so far," George said.
The BJP has been levelling charges of denotification of lands without documents and evidences, he said.
George said BJP State President Yeddyurappa has denotified lands in his constituency during his tenure as the Chief Minister.
The Minister promised to release the documents against the BJP leader after 10 days.
Reacting to Puttaswamy, Siddaramaiah denied denotifying any land.
"When I have not done anything, where is the question of allegation? They are just trying to besmirch me as the elections are nearing. I will file a defamation case and I am consulting my lawyers about this," he said.
Puttaswamy, however, alleged that Siddaramaiah held benami property in the said parcel of land or made huge financial gains from by denotifying it.
The BJP leader claimed that 6 acres and 26 guntas of land in Bhoopsandra in Bengaluru North taluk was notified in 1982 to facilitate the creation of a residential area.
It was subsequently denotified in June 2016, in violation of a Supreme Court order, which had upheld the 1982 notification.
Puttaswamy said though the land acquisition and notification process was over and people were allotted sites in the parcel of land, the denotification process was set in motion again in 2013 through an appeal by an MLA, Vasanth Bangera.
"What is shocking is that after this the original landholders filed a petition for denotification in the High Court while completely suppressing the fact that the Supreme Court had upheld the 1982 notification," he said.
The BJP leader claimed that the Chief Minister overrode the concerns of the Bengaluru Development Authority (BDA) and made it withdraw an appeal challenging the Supreme Court order.
Puttaswamy estimated the value of the land to be Rs 300 crore.
He declared that the BJP would file a complaint with the Anti-Corruption Bureau with all the details.
"Resign if you (Siddaramaiah) have any decency," Puttaswamy said.