Government has denotified land meant for BDA layout, says BJP

The State Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Wednesday accused the Congress government of denotifying the land acquired by the Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) for Shivaram Karanth Layout.

Addressing a press conference in Bangalore, Leader of the Opposition in the Legislative Assembly Jagadish Shettar said that hundreds of acres of land acquired for the layout were being returned to the land owners. As a specific case, he pointed out that 4.06 acres of land in Survey No 23 of Shamarajapura village of Yelahanka hobli in Bangalore (north) (additional) taluk had been denotified in April this year.

Shettar said the denotification had been turned into a business after Siddaramaiah took over as chief minister. The BDA had issued a preliminary notification to acquire 3,546 acres and 12 guntas between Doddaballapur Road and Hesaraghatta Road for Shivaram Karanth Layout in January 2009.

Names changed

The BJP had recently raised a hue and cry over the alleged denotification of 541 acres of Arkavathy Layout land by the ruling Congress. Shettar said the party would continue with its legal and political battle on the issue. He reiterated his charge that the government was changing the names in the Record of Rights (RoR) from that of the BDA to the original landowners in Arakavathy Layout. This was in violation of rules as a judicial probe had been ordered into the scam and there was a need to maintain status quo.

He objected to the appointment of ministers as heads of the House panels. Recently, Energy Minister D K Shivakumar was appointed the head of the panel to look into irregularities in power purchases causing a financial loss to the state exchequer, while Law Minister T B Jayachandra was made head of the committee to probe the Bangalore-Mysore Infrastructure Corridor project.

BJP State president Pralhad Joshi said the State government had failed to take steps to mitigate the suffering of the people of North Karnataka affected by floods. “The government is not showing efficiency in making relief available to those affected due to heavy rains. The chief minister is lethargic,” he said.

To another query, he said the party was not embarrassed by the alleged rape and cheating charges against Railways Minister DV Sadananda Gowda’s son Karthik Gowda. He said it was a personal matter and the party had nothing to do with it. He also rubbished reports that BJP national president Amit Shah had sought a report on the incident.