BJP determined to corner former Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah over Arkavathy scam

BENGALURU: At a time when Congress is using the 40 per cent commission allegation to target the BJP government, the saffron party is determined to attack the Grand Old Party and former chief minister Siddaramaiah over the Arkavathy Layout denotification scam.

On Sunday, CM Basavaraj Bommai reiterated that a decision will be taken at the next cabinet meeting on the next course of action to take the issue to its logical end. BJP state president Nalin Kumar Kateel on Saturday had alleged that “Siddaramaiah will go to jail” for his alleged role in the scam. Even as Siddaramaiah challenged the government to place the Justice HS Kempanna Commission report on the ‘redo’ case on the floor of the House, it did not do so.

The alleged land scam haunted Siddaramaiah in 2014 when he was chief minister and it continues to do so. The commission set up then had conducted an inquiry into the lands denotified after the Bengaluru Development Authority (BDA) notified them between 2004 and 2014 to carve out Arkavathy Layout.Placing the report on the floor of the House may have spelled doom for all the three big parties — BJP, Congress and JDS — as the denotification process was done during the tenure of all the three parties between 2004 and 2014, sources said.

Bommai has been claiming that Siddaramaiah had done it illegally by executing the ‘redo’ for which the latter clarified that the word ‘redo’ was used by the High Court and he had signed the files following its directive. With the legislature session coming to an end and with no option to place the report in the House, the alleged scam is likely to be an election issue for both BJP and Congress.