In a 14-page letter written to Governor Rameshwar Thakur, Mr Gowda pointed out that releasing of “excess” land in favour of NICE would amount to legitimising “fraud worth Rs 30,000 crore” in implementing the Bangalore Mysore Infrastructure Corridor (BMIC) project and against the public interest.
Mr Gowda claimed that the present administration under the Governor has no right to change or alter the decisions taken by the Government headed by Mr H D Kumaraswamy with regard to implementation of the BMIC project as all those decisions were initiated after a thorough debate in the Legislative Assembly and were based on the verdicts of the SC.
He also reminded the Governor that “the administration under President’s rule (working under the Governor) can only at best defer the implementation of the policy taken by the earlier government till an elected government assumes offices but can not annul them or review them or alter them as it is the prerogative of only a duly elected government.”
Mr Gowda also claimed that the NICE, which had been all through seeking early hearing of cases before the Supreme Court, now seeking to delay the hearing of the matters after the JD(S)-BJP government submitted before the Apex Court certain documents which were kept “suppressed” from the Court.
Game plan
“The game plan of the company in seeking delay in hearing of the matter has been simply to await change in administration and influence the stance of the Government in its favour, which the company proclaimed to its investors,” alleged Mr Gowda in his letter. He further claimed that “while the matter is still pending before the Court it is lobbying for more land to be released contrary   to Government’s professed stand in the Court on affidavit, without even bothering to answer the allegation of fraud based on its own record and documents, which negate its claim of having a right to develop and sell land from toll road section of the project.”
Mr Gowda also alleged: “The NICE, in order to divert the attention from the real issues of fraud and fabrication of Government records in its attempt to misappropriate land worth Rs 30,000 crore has unleashed a vicious false propaganda, through media, against me personally and my family by making false and baseless allegation that we have vested financial interest in stalling a project and a partnership in the Global Infrastructure Consortium (GIC), which has now come forward to implement the project in place of NICE.”
He justified the JD(S)-BJP government’s stand to hand over BMIC project to the GIC as it has agreed to forgo “excess” land, offered to building additional infrastructure worth Rs 1,700 crore, offered to pay Rs 3 lakh as self-imposed penalty per day if project not completed within the deadline.
The former prime minister also saw no urgency in taking any decision with regard to the project till an elected government assumed office. He said that the company did not do any work till 2004 since 1995 for commencing the project.
Non-completion of the expressway, till a popular government assumed office after election within a few months, does not in any way affect the commuters as the existing Mysore-Bangalore road has been upgraded to a four-lane road recently, he pointed out.