The issue of the Vijayapura Municipal Corporation’s promise of a plot and ₹25 lakh to international cricketer Rajeshwari Gaikwad has taken a new twist now, with the Municipal Commissioner expressing the civic body’s inability to allot any site to her.

A story about the corporation’s failure to offer the site and the cash reward by the government to Ms. Gaikwad was carried in The Hindu on March 9.

Responding to the report, Corporation Commissioner Harsha Shetty has termed the resolution passed by the corporators as ‘illegal’.

Speaking to The Hindu, he made it clear that since the corporation was not a competent authority to grant any site, it could not offer any residential plot to anyone.

“I really have no idea how the resolution was passed in the first place. Before passing any such resolution, prior discussion on the possibilities and limitations of the corporation should have taken place. But nothing of that sort had happened,” he said.

“Sites can be offered only by the Vijayapura Development Authority or the Karnataka Housing Board and that too only after getting government permission and clearing the legal requirements. Since the corporation has no provision for allotting sites, the question of plot allotment does not arise,” Mr. Shetty said.

However, he clarified that to help the cricketer, the corporation could announce a cash award. “Once the new council of the corporation is formed, a new resolution announcing the cash award can be passed,” he said.

But that is unlikely to happen immediately as the tenure of the council has ended and the government is yet to announce dates for electing the new body.

Prakash Rathod, Congress MLC, had raised the issue of Ms. Gaikwad during Zero Hour of the ongoing Legislature session on March 12 and had pointed out that her family members, who live in a rented house in Vijayapura, were yet to receive any help from the State government, even after four years after the announcement of the reward.