Bengaluru: Several BJP leaders were taken into preventive custody by Karnataka police when they led a protest march to the chief minister's office-cum-residence on Wednesday alleging rampant corruption by the ruling Congress government in Karnataka.
The party leaders, including BJP state president BY Vijayendra, Leader of Opposition in the Karnataka Assembly R Ashoka, former ministers S Sunil Kumar, Araga Jnanendra, S Suresh Kumar, CN Ashwath Narayan and CT Ravi were accompanied by several MLAs and a large number of party workers.
Due to the heavy deployment of police forces, the BJP leaders could not reach their destination and were taken under preventive custody.
The party has alleged that there was around Rs 4,000 crore worth of alternative sites (plots) scam in the Mysuru Urban Development Authority (MUDA) in which one of the beneficiaries is Chief Minister Siddaramaiah's wife Parvathi.
The party also charged that there were attempts to cover up over Rs 180 crore Maharshi Valmiki Scheduled Tribes Development Corporation scam, which forced an accounts superintendent P Chandrasekharan to die by suicide.
"There is rampant corruption going on in the Congress government. The MUDA scam in the chief minister's home district Mysuru is much bigger than the scam in the Valmiki Corporation," Vijayendra told reporters before being taken into preventive custody.
Ashoka demanded that the government should hand over the MUDA scam to the CBI instead of assigning the case to a panel of IAS officers to probe the matter. He also demanded that the chief minister should resign from his position.
Dismissing the charge as false, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah rejected the BJP’s demand for the CBI probe into the case.
"I have already ordered an inquiry. The BJP has no moral right to make such demands. Why are they asking us to assign this case to the CBI when they did not hand over a single case to the investigation agency during its tenure in the state," he told reporters.
The chief minister said his wife got the alternative sites under a scheme introduced by the previous BJP government in the state.
"The BJP leaders are charging that the policy of 50 per cent developed land to be given to the land losers has been misused. To see whether any misuse has happened or not, we have ordered an inquiry," Siddaramaiah said.
He also told reporters that all the sites (plots) that have been allotted by MUDA (as alternative plots) have been put under suspension.
"Once these sites are under suspension, where is the loss to the government? We have transferred all the officers during whose tenure the alternative sites were distributed. We are getting it investigated by a senior IAS officer. We will initiate action once the report comes," he added.
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